Just Pass the Grits. Okay?

It happened last week.  A neighbor uttered two words that don’t go together: “cauliflower grits.”

Nooo. Cauliflower is not grits and never will be.

I understand concerns about diet and health.  Lord knows it’s been a daily struggle for me, especially since living with complications from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Sixteen months in a wheelchair can pack on pounds.

Still.

I’m a gal with strong southern roots. I would not trade a bowl of stewed tomatoes and grits, cheese grits or grits with liver and gravy for cauliflower “grits.”

As my nieces would say, “That’s just wrong.”

For anyone without southern roots, I can forgive the confusion. My neighbor is a woman of solid culinary tastes.  She eats at fancy Italian restaurants and thrills over Vietnamese cuisine. She is also a cauliflower devotee.

“You will love it,” she gushes.

No.  I will not love it because I have never loved cauliflower, a vegetable that I choose to call white broccoli.  Seriously, I’d walk barefoot over hot rocks before subbing cauliflower for grits.

I don’t just cook for nourishment. I cook for joy, otherwise what’s the point? Love of food and the kitchen makes me happy.

My mother died this month.  When I was asked to write some words for her obituary, I wrote about her love for God and how she instilled that love in each of her children.  But really, I could have written about her prowess as a home chef with exemplary imagination and culinary skill.  Everything we learned about food came from her southern roots: her kitchen, our grandmothers’ kitchens, and our aunts’ kitchens. Food and kitchens make me happy.

There were childhood breakfasts with bowls of hot grits, fried chicken livers and onions, and hot biscuits. If for no other reason than the legacy of southern cooking, I take full affront to the idea of replacing grits, rice or potatoes with a ground-up vegetable.

This morning, I sautéed onions, kale (in homage to the green veggie craze), garlic, and mock sausage. I mixed all the veggies into a creamy pot of grits and added cheese. As I watched it all come together with a kind of brown gravy tint, I felt sorry for folks who will never enjoy the warm belly comfort of real grits or rice.

“Cauliflower tastes just like rice” says my neighbor.

No. It doesn’t taste just like rice.

There are real reasons that some folks are choosing cauliflower instead of starchy grains. Recently, concerns have been expressed about rice. Where is it grown? Does the soil have arsenic?  Is it from the southern United States or Vietnam?  White rice is high on the glycemic index and can contribute to blood sugar level spikes.  I acknowledge these concerns, but a good rice pudding or cream of potato soup ain’t the same with cauliflower.

Just sayin’.

When I was a child, foods like grits, kale, and collards were standard southern fare. However things have changed, and with change I find myself in a world where organic collards, once almost free for the picking, are three dollars a bunch and grits are nouvelle cuisine.  With change comes a cultural temptation to make things “better,” healthier, to explore new tastes.

“Have you tried the cauliflower pizza crust?”

No. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The more my friend yammered on about cauliflower rice, the stronger was my pull for a dish of rice covered with a rich chicken stew.  So, I followed the urge and─

• Seasoned and braised two chicken backs in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.
• Chopped onion, carrots, celery, fresh ginger, six or seven cloves of garlic, red bell peppers, and some young spinach leaves. I added the vegetables to the braised chicken.
• Cooked a cup of white rice.
• Added salt, pepper, turmeric, red chilis, and red bell peppers to the mix.
• Threw in three cups of homemade veggie broth.
• Let it all cook down to a thicker broth and added heavy cream. When it was thickened to my liking, I ladled this amazing goodness over a steaming plate of rice.

“Cauliflower would have been good in that stew!”

Sheesh.