Do any other Southerners find it offensive that the Candidates and media keep talking about Grits?

Hmmm! Ethno-gastronomy. Is that a subsidized fuel source made from soy? Seriously though, corn is a New World crop. It didn't exist in Europe until after Columbus. In Italy it's called "granturco" (I don't know where the Turks come into it). You'll see corn widely planted in Tuscany and Lombardy. In France though it's mostly fed to farm animals. I don't recall ever seeing corn "on the cob" served on a European menu, although no doubt there are some daring places that might. So I would say grits take precedence over polenta on the ethno-gastro scale.

Make poltenta, call it 'cheese grits' and see the reaction.

Yeah I know white 'grits' are traditionally grits. But in food history, they have their place with introducing a lime water to the corn before grinding it, which releases vitamins. That's not really "Southern" but more mesoamerican. With new world food and using corn as a nutrient.

Sam, you must read some of Bert Greene (Greene on Grains) if you haven't already. I bet you'd really like him.Has some of the very best recipes using grits. I'm a big Anson Mills fan myself.Yes, we have stone ground white grits produced by a few places in New England, but AM's are the only ones I've had that have a mixture of grain sizes, because of their ancient stone grinding equipment, and I find the texture sooo toothsome. I use their grits for all my 'polenta'; i prefer it to their polenta product (which is yellow).

btw, possibly of interest to southerners and northerners alike, my mom was from virginia and my dad from new orleans, (both born in the '20's) and neither of them grew up eating grits. so southerner= grits is not a truthful equation.

funny!

Yes, when we went to Charleston we were forced to eat grits by my well-meaning former room-mate's (yankee-born, southern-convert) mother. Without benefit of honey or syrup. It was interesting.

Well, to quote from Frank Bruni's blog today,

"In Michael Allen’s morning Playbook in Politico yesterday, under the witty subhead “pundit prep,” he showcased some statistics about Republican primary voters in the two states (Mississippi and Alabama) from Public Policy Polling:

Asked if they think Barack Obama is a Christian or a Muslim, 14 percent of likely primary voters in Alabama said Christian, while 45 percent said Muslim. In Mississippi, 12 percent said Christian, while 52 percent said Muslim.

Asked if they believe in evolution, 26 percent of respondents in Alabama said yes, while 60 percent said no. In Mississippi, 22 percent said yes, while 66 percent said no.

I’ll leave you on that unsettling note."

DrBabs the evolution numbers are scary but perhaps it indicates that Mississipi folk are "devolving" back into catfish.

Pierino, I think you just insulted catfish.