Sugar or salt? It’s one of our people’s greatest debates. Some prefer savory grits, while others like them sweet, and here’s why.
Grits is a comfort food introduced to many of us during childhood, so as adults, we tend to enjoy them the same way as we did as kids, according to food editor Charla Draper.
Folks born and bred in the South usually prefer savory grits because that’s how the region traditionally prepares them. Black Northerners may enjoy sweetened grits, especially those a few generations removed from the South. But is there a “right” way to eat them?
The ground-corn porridge was introduced to us on Southern plantations. Although we learned of grits through slavery, like many Black foods, they’re an early example of the agency we’ve always had.
Historically, savory is the way for cookbooks from prominent chefs like Edna Lewis, who ate her grits with a bit of shrimp paste. Sweet grits may have come from Louisiana’s Creole community. A 1930s cookbook, “The Original Times Picayune Creole Cook Book,” includes a hominy (a corn grain prepared similarly to grits) recipe with milk and sugar.
What’s not debatable is that grits are critical to our food culture. They’re a culinary genius and testament to our people’s divine gift for beautifully adapting and creating things anew.