Hominy Grits

Both words, grits and hominy, with ancient origins from opposite sides of the Atlantic, were combined to describe one of the signature foods of the South. Grits comes from the Old English “grytt,” which even in its earliest forms most often appeared as the plural, “grytta.” It meant any bran or chaff, and implied coarsely ground grain. Oat grits are common in Scotland, though the first known written reference, by the great scholar Ælfric, referred to wheat, “hwæte gryttan.”

In the southern United States, grits refers to the ground product of hominy. Hominy has had many suggested etymologies, all of which center around native American word combinations meaning parched corn. Roger Williams in 1643 suggested a derivation from the Algonquin “Appuminnéonash,” meaning “he roasts grains.” European settlers found hominy common throughout the corn-growing regions of North America and spelled it variously: homini, omine, homine, hommoney.