Web posted Tuesday, July 2, 2002

  Grits-lover Gregory Gooden, of Augusta, holds a bowl of Georgia's new official state food at Mally's Bagels and Grits on Washington Road. Sponsors of the bill say they had a tough time getting lawmakers to take the legislation seriously.

By Sylvia Cooper R
Staff Writer

Hush my mouth! Grits is officially groceries in Georgia.

Grits became an official state food when a new law went into effect Monday, but Gregory Gooden of Augusta would have ordered them anyway.

I love 'em, Mr. Gooden said. I've been eating grits all of my life.

So has state Rep. Dorothy Pelote, D-Savannah, co-sponsor of the bill to make grits Georgia's official processed food.

I've been eating grits for the last 70-something years of my life, she said. Grits will hold me to the next meal. It just clings to my stomach. I must have grits every morning.

Ms. Pelote's dissatisfaction with the finger food at a continental breakfast during the past legislative session led her and Rep. Doug Everett, R-Albany, to sponsor the bill.

I was leaving when I saw Mr. Everett, and he asked where I was going, and I told him, 'I'm going to find me some grits,' Ms. Pelote said. The next day, Mr. Everett said he also had left the continental breakfast to find grits.

Then Mr. Everett said the lawmakers should make grits one of Georgia's official foods, Ms. Pelote said.

So that's how it got started.

Getting the bill through wasn't a cinch, however.

We had a lot of trouble getting it out of committee, Ms. Pelote said. They acted like they didn't want to be bothered with it.

The Libertarian Party of Georgia used the word crazy to describe the bill designating grits as Georgia's official processed food.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gooden wasn't the only grits eater at Mally's Bagels and Grits on Washington Road around noon Monday.Waitress Christin Barnette said she serves plenty of the Southern hominy favorite but has never tried them herself.

I'm from Atlanta, but my mom's from New Jersey, so she really doesn't make Sou-thern food, Ms. Barnette said.

Her colleague Sherri Branson, however, said she loves grits.

I'm a Southern girl. Grits are awesome, she said. I love grits with a lot of salt and pepper and butter.

And there are garlic grits and cheese grits and even Cajun grits.

Mally's owner Henry Scheer, originally from Savannah, said Northerners who have eaten at Mally's, where North meets South in perfect hominy, sometimes ask to try just one grit.

So I have to explain to them about grits, he said. I would say a lot of Northerners don't like grits just because it's grits, just because it's a Southern dish. And some Southerners don't like bagels because it's a Northern thing, but it's just bread. Grits is just corn.

Across town at the Huddle House on Mike Padgett Highway near Bobby Jones Expressway, manager Angie Shelly keeps a pot on all the time.

We served five 32-ounce pots of grits this morning, she said.

THE NITTY GRITTY

* The annual World Grits Festival is held in St. George, S.C., the Grits Capital of the World, which claims to consume more grits per capita than any other place else in the world.

* The annual National Grits Festival is held in Warwick, Ga. This year, the Georgia House adopted a resolution making Warwick the Official Grits Station for the State of Georgia.

* According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the increasing popularity of grits is part of the rise in the consumption of corn products - Americans ate about 13 pounds of such products in 1980, and that figure is now more than 28 pounds.