BUYING good grits - to cook at home - around here

I can see there's been much discussion about grits and cooking them and even a little southern shopping.

My question today is do we still have to order good grits online? Or did anyplace around here start carrying them?

BTW, I had bought grits in the past from http://www.hoppinjohns.com and am almost out of them. I want more, but their web site seems broken. I had heard about it from Best American Recipes 2004-2005 and they said you can get Logan Turnpike Mill grits at that site, now it seems I could get them from Logan's site.

But do I order from the internet or go shopping around here????

Nancy

i've looked in chicago and have never found any. i've ordered from rockland plantation and anson mills. if you buy a large quantity and store in the freezer, the shipping charges aren't quite so painful. if you do find any locally, please share the info, thanks. justjoan

Locally, you can just buy any coarse grind of cornmeal, like Bob's Red Mill polenta. My favorite online source is http://www.mcewenandsons.com They have an excellent product at a reasonable price.

-Will

You know, I've always wondered (well maybe not always, but certainly since I've gone all locavore) why there is such little "corn" culture in our part of the world. Sure, we go ga-ga for sweet corn, but that's pretty much it. We don't seem to use cornmeal/grits/polenta generally, or at least a lot. Someone once ventured, when I said this, that it was as a consequence of all that Midwestern corn being used for ethanol, high fructose syrup and animal feed. That we do not consider corn food. Given our high affection for sweet corn, I'm not sure I buy that, but I'm not sure. Why are there not more local grits.

OK, you want an answer not a problem, and I do have one for you. Ted's Grains is a small outfit near DeKalb, that creates local ground stuff including something like polenta or grits. It's local and therefore good, right, but I will warn that Ted's is heavy on the corn end of the scale, not as smooth, so to speak as your standard grits. Heritage Prairie usually sells Ted's grains at Green City Market. Also, at GCM, Three Sisters sometimes has ground corn too.

Mail order, almost local, I'm really partial to Weisenberger from KY. Extraordinarily high quality to price ratio.

If you want to take a short road trip, [url=http://www.elkhartcountyparks.org/properties_locations/bonneyville_mill.htm]Bonneyville Mill in Elkhart, IN is a really neat place, with a water driven stone wheel a-grindin' corn and other items.

Nancy, you might want to check the website again . . . seems to be working for me. I've ordered from them a couple of times myself and I've been very pleased. You can also try calling them . . . here's a link to a previous post of mine and their phone number appears on the packaging.

Also excellent is Anson Mills. Here's a link to their website.

At one time, Fox and Obel carried Anson Mills grits. It may be worth a call to see if they still do.

Corn meal isn't a 'locavore' product because there really isn't a noteworthy peak ripeness, as there is with, say, tomatoes or fruits. Unless it's gone rancid, there really isn't any benefit to eating corn ground in Illinois vs Iowa.

YourPalWill wrote:At one time, Fox and Obel carried Anson Mills grits. It may be worth a call to see if they still do.

I just got some Anson Mills grits at Village Market Place in Skokie. They don't seem too tough to find - I imagine most Whole Foods Markets would carry them, too.