Hominy Grits

Hominy grits today are the favorite starch of much of the American South, eaten with butter for breakfast and as a side dish for lunch and dinner. Certain combinations, such as shrimp and grits in the Carolinas (the states of highest consumption) or grits and grillades (braised beef steak) in Louisiana, are classics. Baked cheese grits (sometimes with added sausage) is on every list of essential soul food. Hominy (from Virginia Algonkian rockahominy meaning “boiled corn”) grits (from Old English greot, “crush”) is now a mush made fine-ground corn meal—usually white, that has been treated with alkali to remove the skins and improve the vitamin content. The term “nixtamalization” for this technology was coined from the Aztec by food historian Sophie Coe. However, at various times and places hominy has meant cracked or ground corn without nixtamalization.