Has anyone ever made grits from scratch? If that is not possible, does anyone know where there is a source of bulk grits?

-- Mike & Marci (TheBlubaughs@amazinggrazefarm.com), January 23, 2002

Answers

Yes, you can make grits but whether you want to make any quantity of them depends on how much time and effort you want to put into it.

If you can find a copy of The Joy of Cooking they have at least once recipe for making hominy grits. The food preservation bible Putting Food By has three methods. These are all methods that use some form of alkali to hull the grain.

If you want grits as they're commonly eaten here in the Southeast then the wood ash, lye or baking soda method is what you want. If you think you want to try your hand at making masa for tortillas, tamales and the like then try a method using some form of lime - slaked or unslaked - as that is the hulling method of choice in the Southwest.

It's good to know how to make grits and I have several times but for most of what we're going to eat I just buy them since they're dirt cheap and store indefinitely if you package them properly.

Most any restaurant and institutional food supplier should be able to get you grits in fifty pound bags.

All the grits I've ever bought at historical reenactments, heritage fairs, water powered stone grist mills and such didn't use hulled corn (what the lye or lime does) at all but simply grinds corn coarsely and calls it grits. Hulled or unhulled both can legitimately be called hominy grits though most folks think of the hulled form when you use the term.

I just noticed the other day that several of the Super Wallyworlds I've been in carry the "cook for twenty minutes" type of grits as well as the quick and instant grits that are most of what you find anymore.

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), January 23, 2002.