If you’ve never enjoyed a dish made using ground corn, you can kiss my grits.
Ground corn kernels form grits, polenta, cornmeal, corn flour, and masa harina. Tamales, pupusas, cornbread, hush puppies, corndogs, cheese grits, and tortilla chips all include ground corn. It’s hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t had a good experience consuming at least one of these.
Cornbread was the most common use of ground corn in my mother’s household. My dad crumbled it into a thumbprint indented glass schooner filled with buttermilk and ate it with a spoon. I liked it warm with butter.
My grandmother used cornmeal to bread the fried catfish she served with hush puppies. And she made cornbread stuffing for the holidays.
Corn-based products are plentiful, making corn an easy default grain when you need to eliminate wheat from your diet. Corn tortillas can be used for enchiladas, soft tacos, and even sandwich wraps (although they tend to break). They can be spread with butter and toasted as a bread substitute or base for tostadas.
While others at the table enjoy rolls or bread before a restaurant meal, I order tortilla chips with salsa, cheese dip, or guacamole. I often ask to substitute tortilla chips for the pita chips typically served with spinach dip.
Grits can increase your options for breakfast. My kids loved them with butter and salt when they were growing up. Grits were less expensive than cold cereals and I liked that they didn’t contain sugar.
Once I gave up gluten, I was happy to be able to order grits in breakfast restaurants that didn’t offer gluten-free toast or pancakes. It made a filling meal and kept me full for hours.
Some complain that grits have no taste, but that’s the beauty of them. They can be anything you want them to be. I’ve combined polenta and cherries to serve with pork chops. Polenta and plums make an excellent cake. Polenta can even be used as pizza crust.
I went through a phase where I served cheese grits often. They were easy to prepare for guests or carry to a potluck and always got rave reviews. I’m pretty sure that’s due to the abundance of cheese surrounded by a carrier that enhanced the texture and had flavor that didn’t compete.
No article about ground corn is complete without a mention of shrimp and grits. That dish has inspired entire books.
At this point in my food navigating journey, I minimize the use of corn products. I’m not sure if it’s genetic modification of the food or just my system’s pickiness, but I often end up with pain or itchiness from things that contain corn.
With that said, I don’t necessarily want to discourage its use in those who can tolerate it because corn can be bought in the most rural of rural towns and is always plentiful. It’s also less expensive than nut, potato, arrowroot, tapioca, and other gluten-free flours.
I understand minimizing consumption of corn, but if you try to tell me it isn’t delicious, you can kiss my grits!
