It is a good thing that my skin is as hard as a rock and that shocking comments just bounce off. You would not believe it but when I happened to mention in the last column that I did not care for grits (ugh), a very nice lady named Cheryl said that I probably grew up on scrapple. I had forgotten about that delightful dish (not). When I was a little kid, I listened to a radio program where they advertised “Philadelphia Scrapple”.
They made it sound great so I begged my mother to buy some. She eventually did, but when I took one look, I knew that there was no way I would eat it. I have not even seen scrapple since. (It would be very depressing if I were forced to choose between eating scrapple or grits.) Those who read the last column carefully do know that I am a fancier of corn meal mush – a far superior use of corn over grits. The only slight problem with mush is its name.
Mush is like the rose metaphor in that by any other name it would taste as good. Nevertheless, there are some with an unreasonable attitude who refuse to get past the name. A similar situation was around a number of years back when there was a delightful fish called ‘horse head mackerel”. Due to its name, fishermen could not sell it. Then someone got a brilliant public relations idea and they changed the name to “tuna”. Well, you know the rest!
An extremely nice man by the name of Carlos has indicated a solution along the tuna line. It seems that he was raised in the Caribbean and ate lots of corn meal mush with much gusto! A difference was that there they call it “funche”. What a great name – it shows that eating what some call “mush” is fun! I bet that mush makers would grow tenfold if they would change the name, and Bob Evans would have to hire at least two “funche” chefs per restaurant. I might add that the Blonde in the house would be most willing to provide her recipe for home use.
The only sad part of Carlos’s comment is that, like me, he was ambushed with his first taste of grits in South Carolina. He thought it was in Sumter which is the same place that got me. I poured mine into a coffee cup (literally). He put milk and lots of sugar on his, which outraged his Blonde who indicated that he was violating some ancient grit rule and would probably, suffer eternal damnation. He still eats his that way (when he has to), much to his spouse’s continued disgust. He may be a candidate for Husbands United (a secret society).
I had not intended when I started this column to go into such detail on the above. However, a new question undoubtedly appears in many people’s heads at this point. That is, would it improve matters if grits were given a new name? Unfortunately the rose metaphor would apply only in the sense that grits by any other name would still look and taste as bad! Sorry about that!
Barry Evans is a resident of The Villages.
