Georgia Ice Cream
On Saturday, I enjoyed a bowl of Peach Ice Cream at Plainsman Park, watching the Auburn Tigers Baseball Team. I told the people sitting next to me that anytime I saw anything made with peaches I had to give it a try, given my 40 plus years of living in Georgia.
On Sunday, our Sunday School class had a pot luck breakfast during our class. One of the dishes was Cheese Grits which are impossible for me to avoid whether I am on a diet or not.
A fellow class member, Joel Raines, came up to me as I was eating my grits. “I see you like Georgia Ice Cream”, he said. I honestly told him that I have never heard grits called by that name.
Joel informed me that is what they call them in Southwest Georgia. I spent a very long time in Donalsonville, the most southwest town in Georgia. It was only nine miles from Alabama and nine miles from Florida. You cannot get more southwest than that.
It turns out that Joel often visited his grandparents who lived in Attapulgus, just south of Bainbridge. That was only about 30 miles from Donalsonville and clearly had a claim to also being a part of southwest Georgia.
The discussion blossomed in our Sunday School class, and we discussed the different ways we cooked and grew up with grits. For me, it was a regular staple on our breakfast table. I do not remember having cheese on grits growing up, but there was always plenty of butter.
Our discussion on Sunday talked about the different types of grits we bought, such as stone ground, instant and quick grits. I could adapt to quick grits in a pinch, but instant grits never worked for me.
As for the cheese, our brief discussion on Sunday led to personal favorites, including Gouda, Cheddar and even Velvetta. Some used milk rather than water, chicken broth rather than water, and some just water. Some added half and half cream, and for the true lovers of creamy grits, there was heavy cream. Regardless, a common thread was always butter.
Some 40 years ago our company became a test market for Hardee’s in selling grits. The food scientists insisted on a healthy recipe which included Jim Dandy grits, no salt and no butter. After one taste we realized it was a recipe for disaster, likely developed by a person from up north. We ignored the recipe and proceeded to sell more grits than any Hardee’s in the chain.
The Georgia Ice Cream being served during our Sunday School class was actually dispensed using an ice cream scoop. While I appreciated the visual connection, an ice cream scoop is much better suited to the real dairy product than the gummy corn and cheese concoction that southerners grew up on.
We could go on and on about what goes best with grits. Eggs with a runny yolk are my personal favorite, especially combined with bacon. Who does not like a biscuit with this type of breakfast, especially if combined with sausage gravy.
Thanks to an expanding waistline, I have curtailed my consumption of grits to special occasions. That would include Christmas, Thanksgiving, any time my grandchildren are visiting at Compass Lake or Auburn and any time I visit Waffle House. Given there are six Waffle Houses in Auburn and Opelika, the temptation for grits is everywhere.
I like that I can now call grits “Georgia Ice Cream”. Perhaps I can just consider them a dessert which would allow me to eat them more than once a day. Breakfast, lunch and supper. A true southerner’s dream.
Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]