Grits has long been the pride and embarrassment of the Southern kitchen. There are many things about the cooking of the South that are easy for everyone to embrace, but grits is not one of them. People either love or hate it with equal passion.

The one way, however, that almost everyone will eat grits is when it has shrimp ladled over it in that universally fashionable appetizer of every nouvelle Southern restaurant worth its herb garnish. Now that the season for sweet local brown creek shrimp (the best choice for shrimp and grits) is upon us, it seems a good time to reexamine the much-maligned bed on which those shrimp are laid.

The first thing you need to know is that grits can be both singular and plural; both forms are perfectly acceptable. But since one has to adopt one or the other, traditionalist that I am, I’ve used the traditional singular form here. If that offends your grammatical sensibilities, try to get over it.

Now that that’s out of our way, lets get a clear handle on exactly what grits is. It is nothing more than the coarsest and roughest grind of corn from the mill—much coarser than Italian polenta, to which it is so often (and erroneously) compared. That texture is its defining characteristic, regardless of whether the corn was white or yellow, or the grain was ground whole or first made into hominy.

There are two kinds of grits: not yellow and white, as you might suspect, but whole corn and hominy. Hominy grits is made, obviously, from hominy, corn kernels that have been soaked in lye and stripped of their tough outer hull. It was once the most commonly used kind of grits, which is why some old guard Charlestonians still prefer to call the cereal “hominy” and not “hominy grits” or just “grits.”

Actually, removing the hull isn’t the only or even primary object: lye actually changes the chemical structure of the corn so that it will hold together in tortillas and tamales. If you tried to make a tortilla with regular corn meal, it would just fall apart.

But that’s not all the lye accomplishes. It also makes the grain more digestible and, believe it or not, nutritious, which is why Native Americans never got pellagra, a disease that ran rampant among European peasants when corn replaced other grains in their diets after its introduction to Europe in the sixteenth century.

There are three kinds of hominy grits, only one of which is worth buying. Instant grits is the cereal that has been cooked and dehydrated—it’s absolutely tasteless and foul, and no one with any self-respect should go anywhere near it. Quick grits has been treated so that it cooks allegedly in as little as five minutes, but if you want it to be any good, it still needs to cook for at least half an hour. The one to buy is plain hominy grits. It won’t say that’s what it is on the label, so look at the cooking time: most will call for at least 30 minutes. To be at its best, however, it needs to cook for an hour.

Whole corn grits is nothing more than the grain that’s milled whole, hull and all, without treating it. It is not the same as hominy grits, and—get this into your head—though it carries a certain snob appeal and is the current darling of the gourmet foodie crowd, it’s not somehow superior. Though I enjoy whole corn grits, and usually have a bag of them handy in my freezer, I’m really sick of all this snob posturing.

Just as you cannot make a tortilla with regular corn flour (superfine meal), whole corn grits is not always the best choice for some grits dishes. In my opinion, despite all the dainty hype about it on restaurant menus, Shrimp and Grits is one of those dishes in which artisan-milled whole corn grits do not belong.

Flavor is the oft-cited reason for preferring whole corn over hominy grits, but flavor is exactly the reason whole corn grits does not belong with shrimp. Never mind that the gravy of most shrimp and grits recipes is often so overpowered by tasso, garlic, and hot pepper that you don’t really taste the grits anyway—let alone the shrimp. The shrimp is supposed to be the star, here, and while their flavor is distinctive, it is also fairly delicate, and begs for more delicate treatment than it is usually given.

When my family came to the coast for our summer vacations, shrimp and grits for breakfast was always a part of the experience. We bought them from day-boaters, firm and smelling cleanly of the sea, and took them back to the campsite or to residential motel where we were staying.

The cooking equipment was usually limiting, but that didn’t matter. My mother would have cooked them the same way regardless: she simply peeled and sautéed in copious quantities of butter and then spooned them—with all that pink, shrimpy butter—over pristine beds of creamy, snow-white hominy grits.

On those bright, hot mornings, we did not need one of my father’s sermons to know what heaven was going to be like: were tasting it.

Mama’s Breakfast Shrimp, A.K.A. Shrimp and Grits

Mama’s way of making this bite of heaven may well have been the original way of making shrimp and grits. Probably poor folk who did not always have butter on hand would use bacon drippings, which were always present in a can on the back of the stove, but butter is best when the shrimp are in high season.

Mama never washed grits before cooking them, but many traditional Lowcountry cooks do, and it does make them more pristinely white. To do it, put the grits in the pot and cover by at least an inch with cold water. Stir with your hand until the water is milky. Let the chaff settle to the top and the grits to the bottom and carefully pour off the water. Repeat twice more, then add 4 cups cold water and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Finish the grits as directed below.

Serves 4

1 cup raw hominy grits

Salt

1¼ pounds small shrimp

8 tablespoons unsalted butter

Whole black pepper in a peppermill or ground cayenne, optional

1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil and add the grits in a steady stream, stirring constantly. Keep stirring until the grits is beginning to thicken, loosely cover, and reduce the heat to medium low.

2. Cook the grits, stirring frequently at first and then occasionally as it thickens, until thick and creamy, about an hour regular hominy grits, at least 30 minutes for quick grits. Add salt to taste and simmer for a few minutes longer to absorb the flavoring.

3. Meanwhile, peel the shrimp. When the grits are done, melt the butter in a large sauté pan or skillet set over medium heat. Add the shrimp and sauté, tossing constantly, until pink, curled, and just cooked through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and season with salt to taste. Mama never added pepper; she thought it interfered with the shrimps’ delicate flavor. But some local cooks do. You may black cayenne pepper (or both), to taste, if you like, but don’t overdo it.

4. Quickly divide the grits among four warm plates. Spoon the shrimp and their butter over the grits and serve immediately.