Not Your Gran Mama’s Grits

Friday mornings, especially on a Florida-chilly Friday morning I had to wake up an extra 30-minutes before I walked the short mile or so to go to school. I think I was somewhere between six or seven years old. I would run over to Gran Ma’s house, through the backdoor and beeline straight to the bigger-than-life Viking gas stove.

I was ever so careful not to slam the screen door and jumped up to give Gran Ma a slobbery kiss that she knew was coming though she always tried to avoid them. Friday mornings I had to see her make it and get my bowl of goodness before the waiting co-droolers.

I didn’t wait for Gran Ma to get her tattered handmade step stool so I had to stand on my tippy toes just to see Gran Ma stir it into perfection.

“Gran Ma, Gran Ma are they ready yet?”

[In her West Indian patois, colored with West Afrikan spike.]

“Watch out now, ‘fo dem hot grits leep de pot and pop you in dem whale-fish hungry eyes!”

I’d jump up and down trying to get the best view and better sniff of the most heavenly thing on earth, Gran Ma’s Fungi and Fish. The breakfast that people flocked every weekend far and wide and the world over to Charlie’s Bar and Restaurant to get what US southerners called Fish and Grits but definitely far from your Gran Mama’s grits.

Gran Ma was born in Antigua West Indies of proud West Afrikan parents who never strayed too far from her Asante and Nigerian culture. When it came to cooking, she always found a way to throw Afrika into every dish she made, no matter the origin or culture. Sometimes she would travel hundreds of miles to find the spices and ingredients she needed to make her signature dishes dash from the plate with goodness.

Gran Ma started all her dishes with her homemade stock. Vegetables, fish, chicken, goat or pork; she would set the kitchen aroma off by boiling the “end-parts” of what most people said was “table unworthy” and would throw away. Gran Ma’s grits water was boiled down from the end parts of celery, yams and Kontomire (Casava leaves) and re-grilled-crunchy head and caucus of a Red Snapper; not short of the tail and fins.

“Gran Ma, when is it gonna be ready?”

“Till dem ancestors know ya cookin’ chií”, she’d say.

Timing was everything and only Gran Ma knew exactly when. She only cooked with yellow corn meal. The Georgia Southerners always called it Yellow Grits, but Grand Ma said there was no such thing. Yellow nor white grits; wasn’t Gran Ma’s secret. She would boil the okra and strain off the “yucky” then add it to the percolating grits. The Red Snapper, Grouper or Shrimp was seasoned West Afrikan style and already smoked in the fireplace right inside the restaurant. Yep, a real fireplace with a chimney in the Florida Keys, the only one south of highway A1A which was probably Gran Ma’s secret.

Her ladle was carved from the Calabash tree in her grandmother’s back yard that she brought back on her first visit back home to Antigua. But “that” thing that made the world show up every Friday was the way she deliciously decorated the grits with diced grilled onions and tomatoes. Butter nor margarine could beat the palm oil drizzled atop the avocadoes and black beans for her Caribbean touch.

And that bowl didn't leave the kitchen without a piping hot cup of Jamaican coffee topped off with goat milk froth.

So, every chance I get I tip-toe to my general electric stove to duplicate Gran Ma’s grits – but believe me, the picture you see Ain’t my Gran Ma’s Grits but best believe it tastes “Gooderer than Red Kool-Aid on Labor Day”!