Shrimp and Grits

Shrimp and grits began as a Gullah Geechee breakfast — creek shrimp caught at dawn, sautéed with butter and seasoning, served over a bowl of stone-ground grits. It was working-class food, sustenance food, cooked in every fishing household along the Carolina and Georgia coast. It entered the fine dining world through two events: Craig Claiborne's 1985 *New York Times* piece on the dish, and the wave of Low Country chefs in the 1990s and 2000s — particularly Sean Brock and Mashama Bailey — who elevated it to a signature. The dish's trajectory from Gullah Geechee breakfast to fine dining destination mirrors the broader pattern of African American culinary tradition: the technique created by Black cooks, enjoyed by everyone, credited to the white chefs who put it on restaurant menus.

Sautéed shrimp — ideally fresh, wild-caught, head-on creek shrimp from the Carolina coast — in butter with garlic, lemon, and either a cream-based or tomato-based pan sauce, served over a mound of slow-cooked, stone-ground grits enriched with butter and sharp cheddar. The shrimp should be plump, pink, and barely cooked through — the sauce should coat them and pool around the grits. The grits should be creamy, loose enough to spread slowly on the plate, and should taste of corn.

Shrimp and grits is breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner — it works at any meal. At breakfast: with a biscuit and coffee. At dinner: as a first course or a main course with a green salad. Hot sauce on the table. The richness of butter-and-cheese grits with sauced shrimp wants acid: lemon, hot sauce, or a vinaigrette-dressed salad alongside.