Wikipedia: Grits/Talk

FYI My comment on waitresses in southern USA restaurants is not intended to be impolite and is from personal experience. :-)

You left out the bacon. Sometimes crumbled into it, with sausage and eggs on the side. Southern restaurants get kickbacks from cardiologists. ;-) And I've never heard of it with brown sugar. That is not at all common in the south (I know, I've lived here all my life). Butter, milk, and brown sugar sounds more like it should be in oatmeal. --KQ

This article should mention that grits originated in africa, and something similar is still eaten by the majority of residents there. (eg. ugali, fufu, pap). I'm not a grits expert obviously, as I do not in a trailer park, and I still have all my teeth :p - MB

Corn/Maize? comes from the Americas. Grits were probably Native American first, I'd guess.

I've never heard of brown sugar either, that's more of a Cream-of-wheat or oatmeal thing. I was born in Georgia and spent much of my childhood in Mississippi; my typical breakfast was two over-easy eggs with grits poured over them and all chopped up into a yellow mess. --LDC

With brown sugar and butter may be a more Northern way of eating grits than Deep South. It's the way my family eats them -from the Illinois side of the Kentucky border. Although sorghum is good too. --rmhermen

Should it be 'grits are' or 'grits is'? "grits are".

In any case, grits (is|are) also good with some ortega peppers. - justfred

In re: grits from Africa, while maize is native to North America, sorghum is native to Africa. I'm no expert on grits (and as I have the flu or something at the moment and am generally off my feed, I really rather not think about them), but that would seem to me to be a plausible explanation for their African origin: grits were originally made with Sorghum in Africa, and only became corn-based in North America later. -- Paul Drye

I am a serious amateur of Southern Folkways (I'm only an expert Medievalist), and grits with brown sugar sounds outre. Maybe they eat it that way in North Carolina, where their bbq sauce starts with mustard rather than with tomato? On the African origin question - my lord, folks, they're ground mush -- it's like saying that bread had a single origin! Now OKRA is of African origin. --MichaelTinkler

Wait a sec -- exactly how are grits like Cream of Wheat? They don't taste like it, they have a different texture, and I would never put milk and sugar on my grits! Conversely, I would never put cheese in my Cream of Wheat...JHK

Controversy on grits!!! There must be some way that we can combine the debate on grits with the "creationism vs evolution" debate. - MB

It's a scientific fact that grits are a completely different dish from Cream of Wheat. No, that's just your belief system. Don't try to force your agendas on me, buddy!

Ok, so I was born in Memphis, lived on the south side a while, then raised in Louisville, Ky. We ate 'em with butter and (white) sugar. Nowadays, I eat 'em with salt and pepper.