Chomp!

By Ron Aiken
November 22, 2013

Shrimp & Grits Started in Columbia. Seriously.

The playbook for how to create a signature dish is known – take a staple protein, take a staple starch or side, get the highest-quality ingredients, add a twist.

Sometimes, a winning combination will create a nice buzz for one’s restaurant (off-hand, I’m thinking Mr. Friendly’s bacon-wrapped filet mignon with pimento cheese, but there are so many more great local examples). Other times – when the combination of people, place and food is perfect – it can create a sensation, one capable of transcending regional and even national boundaries.

In the case of The Old Post Office Restaurant in the 1980s, chef Philip Bardin did just that. He took the best shrimp, the best grits and added a twist – mousseline sauce – and voila, suddenly grits became not just a cheap breakfast item but a luxurious base for an upscale dinner entree for the first time anywhere. As its popularity grew and grew and grew and thanks to massive national exposure through television, print (a 2000 USA Today feature chose Bardin’s dish one of the 50 Great Plates of America) and countless cookbooks, today Shrimp and Grits is arguably the South’s signature dish, the apex of its culinary achievement.

Because Chomp! cares about such things, is friends with Bardin and thinks you’ll appreciate the true story of the history of the dish, he reached out to Bardin to have him offer his thoughts on the dish heard ’round the world.

Philip Bardin:

Shrimp and grits now seem to dominate menus throughout the South and even much further. But they did not make their popular stand and actually appear in great numbers (and barely at all on dinner menus) until the late 80’s.

While a popular Lowcountry breakfast fare, to offer at night seemed at the time to me to throw caution to the wind when we offered them at night at The Old Post Office in 1988. Grits had been done on some menus – usually as cakes and as an appetizer – but the free and loose form was pretty much unheard of. And we took it on the chin with complaints. Grits are for breakfast. These grits are too coarse. Who’s foolish idea was it to do this? Sixteen bucks for a plate of grits?

The thing that changed the dish were the peasant underpinning of the grits themselves. I had tried to offer this dish at night at The Loft Restaurant in Columbia in the early 80’s. The problem back then was while there were plentiful and beautiful shrimp, stone-ground grits were hard to find and the ones you were lucky to acquire were not good. The stones grinding them were too hot or they were ground with steel and were too hot because they were ground quickly in big quantities. They were rarely dated and had odd textures – some similar to sawdust. Also, current-day gourmet grits are to be treated like coffee and if kept for a long time, demanded space in your freezer. Commercial brands at the grocery store were not an option for they are cheap and taste like the aroma of the store itself. I abandoned the idea quickly.

Fast forward to now and the reverse has happened. It is now the abundance of fresh shrimp at good prices that are hard to find. But luckily, that bed of grits has improved dramatically – VERY dramatically – and are delicious. This reversal has also yielded excellent sources in South Carolina with folks that know what they are doing : Anson Mills, Geechie Boy, Timms Mill, just to name a few.

When I rolled the dice I used a mill in the highest point in the state of Georgia that grew their own heirloom dent corn and were commonly referred to as Georgia Ice Cream. After a few months of harsh commentary, we got lucky at a little-known Old Post Office Restaurant on Edisto Island with some excellent write-ups and a loyal following. Soon, we gave spoonfuls to every plate.

Years later, every restaurant downtown followed our lead with dozens of variations and almost all of them really good. Years later, when arguments ensued among the dining public as to who had the best, I declared victory was solidly achieved.

Pretty much every tip and hint on the coarse, stone ground grits has been given. Some chefs, such as Mike Lata in Charleston, was at one time grinding his own corn and grits to order. I was extremely fortunate to have been able to meet the late, great Chef Charlie Trotter of Chicago in Kansas City years and years ago. He gave one of the best suggestions ever when he said, Every batch of grits are different, and he was right. They are moody and while a base recipe usually suffices, I always suggest staying right by them and stirring for one hour and then moving them to a double boiler.

There is no shortage of shrimp and grits recipes out there, so take your pick. Just remember to purchase good ones that are freshly ground and what you don’t use seal tight in plastic and freeze. The brand I prefer (sorry, I have to keep some secrets!) has never lost a cook-off and that includes ones out of the freezer.

The Old Post Office recipe.

The Grits
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole-grain grits
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Bring the water, milk, cream butter and salt to a low boil. Add the grits, stirring rapidly on medium heat. Stir and watch for 20 minutes, being careful not to let the grits stick. Stir in the cheese, pour the grits into a crock pot or double boiler and continue cooking for at least one hour. Remember, the classic ratio is four parts liquid to one part grits

The Sauce (Mousseline Sauce)
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons lemon juice
¼ pound butter, melted and boiling hot
dash of cayenne
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Put the egg yolks and lemon juice into a blender and add the butter in a slow, steady stream. Make sure the butter is very hot. Blend in the cayenne and salt. Add 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. If you wish the sauce to be thicker, place a bowl over a pot of softly boiling water and stir constantly with a whisk until thick.

The Shrimp
48 shrimp, peeled and deveined
butter
salt
2 cups grits
4 tablespoons Mousseline sauce

Boil or saute the shrimp in butter and a little salt until the shrimp turn pink, which is about five minutes. Place on bed of grits. Top with Mousseline sauce.

Here’s the original version as served by Bardin while at The Old Post Office.

That’s it! Rock this plate, y’all! Oh, and one final note from Bardin. I asked him about the many people who add tasso ham to shrimp and grits, and this is what he had to say:

Tasso is – of course – from southern Louisiana prepared to cover the flavor of inferior meats. It is also one of those great plays on words as it is not a ham at all. I personally think it ruins the fresh taste of shrimp but what do I know? Donald Barickman sold a million plates of it at Magnolia’s. Why people put pork with fresh seafood has always been a mystery to me, but everyone is different.

Cheers! From Chomp!

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