My Mother (Continued)

No. 8 – Mother’s Cooking – And then there were grits.

(My apologies, this article was posted out of sequence.)

Following up on the topic of cooking; growing up in Virginia, you would think grits would have been a regular on the breakfast table. As it was, neither of my parents ate grits. I did not experience (and learn to like) grits until I went to college where they were a staple of the breakfast cafeteria line every morning. I went home telling my parents about how great grits were and why had we never had them. Mother allowed as how she thought they were tasteless, not worth the effort. How they had lived in Virginia for more than 20 years and managed to not develop a taste for grits was a mystery to me. After all, they liked cream of wheat and farina!

Mother, however, decided to surprise me and fix grits. She got a box of dried grits with a recipe for cheesy grits on the box, which she had heard me mention. That evening she served up a casserole dish of cheesy grits. They were gritty for sure. Naïve, my mother did not realize (and had overlooked the directions) that it was necessary to cook the grits first, then make the casserole. She simply put the dry grits with all the other ingredients in the casserole dish (minus any water) in the oven.

It was true grit!

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