Grits Tips?

[Jennifer Brizzi]

I've long been a big grits fan, and although my southern parents never cooked them when I was a kid, I seek them out whenever I head south and also make them at home. But as much as I love them, they confuse me. I believed until recently that hominy grits were related to hominy, the unique-tasting lye-soaked corn product you'll find in the Mexican soups menudo and posole, as well as in good corn tortillas. I thought that I was tasting the same flavor when I ate grits. Not long ago I bought some stone ground grits and some corn meal from War Eagle Mill in Arkansas, and to me the grits tasted exactly like the cornmeal, only with a much coarser texture (they were both yellow). Although they were good, I could not taste that distinctive, delicious hominy flavor.

Now, after a recent trip to South Carolina, where I ate grits every morning and sometimes for dinner, too, I am even more confused. Can someone tell me what is the difference between grits and polenta? Are grits just a very coarse cornmeal or are they made with lye-treated hominy? Or are there perhaps different kinds of grits? I plan to write a column about grits soon and would love some illumination from anyone more expert than me. Thanks.

Jennifer Brizzi

author of "Ravenous," a weekly food column for Ulster Publishing (Woodstock Times, Kingston Times, etc.)

[DTBarton]

Not sure, but I think it's mostly a question of the fineness of the grind. To me, corn meal and polenta are pretty much the same, although there are variances in the grind here as well. Some of the southern white corn meals are ground almost as fine as flour and I don't like to use them for polenta (or as my grandfather called it before we got all prettified, corn meal mush ). For polenta, I like a grind similar to the old Quaker yellow corn meal in the round box.

I mostly think of grits as coarser ground than corn meal and usually white corn, or mostly white with bits of yellow. The best I've had I bought at Farmer's markets in the south (NC and SC) and they came in brown paper sacks, far superior to the grocery store kind.

Hominy I think of as whole kernel corn. I've used it dried or canned. The dried is better, but I can't always get it. Dried hominy varies widely in cooking time, so check it often when simmering. Also will need a good shot of salt in the water. The canned is ok, but can be very salty and/or canny. I rinse my canned hominy to rid it of salt and canniness (as much as possible) and then saute it in just a bit of butter over pretty high heat to "toast" it a bit and bring out the corn flavor. Add some pepper (all grits and hominy love pepper) And taste for salt.

I love to serve pan sauteed hominy with chili, it's fantastic. You can add some diced chili peppers to the homny saute pan for additional fun.

[Lone Star]

Hominy and cornmeal are two different things. Hominy is usually made from dent corn which is dried hard on the cob and then soaked in a lye solution. The corn swells and the hull is removed and then it is ground into grits.

Cornmeal is used for making polenta and there are all different types of grinds and different corns (like coffees).

[davebr]

All I will eat are the War Eagle grits. Maybe the cooking process is keeping you from tasting the difference. I have adopted a technique for cooking the grits from Anson Mills in South Carolina. War Eagle says to use 5 parts water to 1 part grit. Boil then simmer for 45 minutes. I use 3 to 1. I bring 2c water and 1c milk to a boil with a little salt. stir in 1cup grits and let pot return to a simmer. Then cover the pot and set on low heat. Keep stiring to avoid too much sticking to the bottom. Cook for 30 minutes covered. Then do the same thing uncovered for 30 more minutes.

The Anson Mills people explained to me something about the starch will only be released this way giving you a creamy rich corn flavor. The grits release this differently because it is a cold grinding process--just like at the War Eagle. And a bunch of other scientific stuff about the germ or something that I really didnt pay any attention to---I may unfortunatly look like Alton but.........

I love the grits from there and I have never had any better anywhere. Sorry South Carolina.

[slkinsey]

As I posted elsewhere in the eG Forums:

Re hominy and grits:  They are different forms of the same thing.

Hominy is simply dried corn that has been processed by soaking in lye or slaked lime.

"Grits" originally meant any coarsely ground grain (wheat, oats, corn, rice, whatever).  Technically, regular coarse cornmeal and semolina are both kinds of "grits."

Way back folks said "hominy grits" when they were talking about coarsely ground hominy.  But there is no escaping the fact that hominy grits is the most common kind, and "grits" has come to largely mean the same as "hominy grits."  A similar thing has happened with "polenta" which has some to be understood by most people as a cornmeal-based dish when it can in fact be made with any kind of coarse grain.

[Jennifer Brizzi]

Thanks so much for all the help and information I've gotten so far. Since posting the question, I have looked at a copy of "Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking" by John Martin Taylor, and he says that grits are merely ground corn, and the only reason "hominy" is sometimes written next to grits is because of grits' physical resemblance to lye-soaked hominy. He adds that grits are only very rarely made from lye-soaked corn.

I guess that in the past when I've perceived a hominy flavor in my grits, it was merely a gustatory hallucination--but I will continue to love them and keep trying them in different guises (except maybe not with a half gallon of cream). Thanks for the cooking tips as well, all of you.

Now if only I can figure out this html business...

[ludja]

...

He adds that grits are only very rarely made from lye-soaked corn.

...

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Interesting, I looked back at Bill Neal's "Good Old Grits Cookbook" and was a little confused as to just this point. i.e. whether or not what is sold as "grits" was ground from corn that was lye-treated or not.

Here's a quote from his book

The original name, hominy grits, still appears on the packages of grits sold by Quaker Oats and other companies, but the food has long since lost its connection to the old-fashioned lye soak process.  Today, it refers, generically, to corn grits, that is, dried corn that has been hulled and roughly ground.

From this quote, it seems he is saying the same thing as Taylor, i.e. what is commonly sold as grits is not made from lye-treated corn.

I guess I read slkinsey's quote above as meaning that what sold as "grits" was actually ground up corn that had been treated wtih lye.

Is that what you meant slkinsey?

Apologies in advance if I'm misreading your post or being maddeningly pedantic.

Other question:

If most (all?) grits sold are not made from hominy (i.e. lye treated corn), why not?

The lye treatment releases additional essential vitamins so it would seem a loss not to make them this way unless the difference in taste or texture reallly makes it another product.

[rancho_gordo]

...

He adds that grits are only very rarely made from lye-soaked corn.

...

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Interesting, I looked back at Bill Neal's "Good Old Grits Cookbook" and was a little confused as to just this point. i.e. whether or not what is sold as "grits" was ground from corn that was lye-treated or not.

I'm probably not helping but the purpose of the lye is to remove the hull. It's possible the grits are soaked in cal or wood ash instead of lye.

[slkinsey]

Here is what Quaker says:

Grits are made from the milling of corn kernels. The first step in the process is to clean the kernels; then, the grains are steamed for a short time to loosen the tough outer hull. The grain kernel is split, which removes the hull and germ, leaving the broken endosperm. Heavy steel rollers break up the endosperm into granules, which are separated by a screening process. The large-size granules are the grits; the smaller ones become cornmeal and corn flour.

This sounds to me like there is no lye involved in Quaker's grits. But I wonder how accurate this actually is. I can see how the Quaker folks might think it was bad PR to say that the corn is treated by soaking in slaked lime or lye. Interestingly, though, if you look at Quaker's information page for their Old Fashioned Grits, it says it is made from "white hominy grits made from corn." This leads me to believe that they are selling actual hominy (i.e., treated with slaked lime or lye) grits.

It would be interesting to cook some Quaker oats and Quaker cornmeal side by side to see whether it tasted different. Having cooked up plenty of Quaker grits (although I'm on to better these days) as well as polenta from Quaker cornmeal (ditto), my tastebuds tell me that they are different.

[The Cynical Chef]

Many, many moons ago "grist" was any dried grain that was ground up at a mill. Wheat, Corn, Barley......harvest it, dry it then hitch up the mules and haul it down to Mr. Suber's water powered mill where for a percentage of the total weight, Mr. Suber would grind your grain into grist. The water wheel spun 2 flat pieces of stone that resembled enormous vinyl records (LP's...remember those?). The grist would be sifted according to your instructions. Now you're ready for a long winter because you have a pantry full of flour, corn meal (fine and coarse) and ground barley. Rumor has it that through a typographical error in a Carolina publication (Miss Sugie Ravenel's 101 ways to Survive and Prosper during a Union Blockade....?) that corn "grist" became corn "grits" and that name has stuck like cold grits to a cheap pot. Grits, Polenta, Corn Meal and Corn Flour are all dried corn that has been ground up. The difference is how fine or coarse the grind.

And just why do we say ground "up"....there is no altitude involved in grinding. Why don't we say ground "around" because the product is actually going in a circle while it is being ground. It's not going up....but I guess there is some fine dust that does go up but the majority of the product that is being ground is not going anywhere but in a circle so why do you suppose.........

[Richard Kilgore]

From the Anson Mills website, for whatever light this may shed:

HOMINY: DEFINITION: Colonial English spelling of the sound of the oral Native American word for corn. CONTEMPORARY DEFINITION: A food made by soaking whole corn in slaked lime solution to remove the germ and hull.

 

GRITS: Charlestonians have always called grits "HOMINY" - a shortened version of the old Carolina term for whole corn "HOMINY GRIST." In Charleston terms this definitely does not mean corn soaked in lye (who would want to do this unless they were really hungry?), but it does mean fresh ground whole corn grist. Antebellum Hominy Grist was produced everywhere in Carolina and Georgia...by fresh milling corn then winnowing out only the hull to preserve whole corn nutrients, flavor & texture.

I am a huge fan of Anson Mills grits, and have posted elsewhere here about cooking them in a slow cooker for three hours. Superb. An altogether completely different thing than Quaker. War Eagle grits are also very good, but I give the nod to Anson Mills at this point, although I have not done a side by side comparison yet.

[Jennifer Brizzi]

I did way too much research on this topic, and wish to thank everyone who helped. The final conclusion I arrived at is that grits, whether called "hominy grits" or not, are almost always made from coarsely ground dried corn. Period. It remains a mystery to me why Quaker grits has "hominy" on the label, and why James Beard, Betty Fussell and many many other food writers (including myself, before I did my research--oops) have said they are made from ground hominy escapes me.

It seems that perhaps grits have been made from hominy, or corn thats been treated with lime, lye, baking soda or something else, that such a thing exists somewhere, but I do not know how to find any. The greater mystery to me, though, is why all these years I thought grits tasted like masa harina and hominy!

Thanks again for all your input on the topic.

[rancho_gordo]

I don't think you're quite there with a definitive answer. As slkinsey reports, Quaker removes the hull before grinding. Right off the bat, this is different than simply grinding dried corn. And it explains a similarity to Mexican masa.

[slkinsey]

I just spoke with the good people at Quaker (1-800-MY-GRITS) and they confirmed that Quaker Grits are indeed no longer made with hominy. They are made with regular old dry corn.

[rancho_gordo]

I just spoke with the good people at Quaker (1-800-MY-GRITS) and they confirmed that Quaker Grits are indeed no longer made with hominy.  They are made with regular old dry corn.

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But are the skins removed?

[robyn]

OK - I am sure I will make a total botch of this - but I'll try. There's a county fair here in north Florida every year (Clay County) where they have an exhibit of old (but working) machines. One is a machine for grinding corn - perhaps late 19th century - early 20th century. It's kind of like a conveyor belt. The stuff that comes out at the beginning is very fine - cornmeal. The stuff in the middle is grits (which are then prepared in traditional manner by volunteers wearing settler garb). The stuff at the end is garbage - chicken feed. Perhaps I have the conveyor belt backwards - but that's the idea. No additives - like lye. It's just a question of grinding corn - and using the different degrees of grind for different things.

I'm sure there are more specialized machines these days - and perhaps different ways of preparing stuff - but if you want to see the way it used to be done - go to the Clay County Fair . Robyn

[joiei]

here is the link Clay County Fair . Sounds great, but I am already commited to a Oaxacan cooking class in Fort Worth, bummer. If your going, make plans soon, it is at the end of March.