When I was growing up in New Orleans, no one ate shrimp and grits, and no restaurants offered the dish on their menus – even on menus that offered shrimp and, in some different context, grits. Shrimp and grits was simply not a New Orleans dish, in an era when that was the first, sometimes only prerequisite.

Today, of course, nearly everybody eats shrimp and grits and nearly every restaurant offers it. Through some cultural alchemy, a food idea born in desperation along the post-Civil War coast of the Carolinas has become a Southern classic, a soul food classic, and even an American classic. A staple of an area known as the Lowcountry (yes, usually one word) has climbed to the highest levels of culinary admiration.

Every time you sit down to a plate or bowl of shrimp and grits, you are paying tribute to a specific population known as the Gullah Geechee. The two names once belonged to two separate tribal groups of West or Central African slaves dragged across the Atlantic in the Middle Passage, often by way of time in the Caribbean. Though cotton was king deeper into the slave-owning South, along the coast there were plantations devoted to growing rice and indigo. On a timeline of American slavery, these plantations formed much earlier than the cotton operations in places like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and East Texas.

After the South lost the war and slavery came to an end, growers along the Carolina coast attempted to do what their brethren did elsewhere – to create some other system, sharecropping most often, that replicated their success (and control) working slaves. And many freed men and women dreamed most of all of owning their own farm land, a step that seemed closer when you were a tenant than when you were enslaved.

Still, the new system struggled, as did the African Americans trying to survive within it. Many plantations shut down operations, and many plantation owners had already moved to larger towns and even cities that they had merely visited on business before the war. The population of coastal North and South Carolina became more and more African American, though there were substantial numbers of poor whites fighting to live at much the same subsistence level.

Those who were formerly enslaved came to be known as Gullah or Geechee, and finally Gullah Geechee. In our time, with its improved cultural awareness, there’s even a Congress-created Gullah Geechee Corridor linking the touristic destinations of coastal and barrier island North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and north Florida. Numberless businesses reflecting the dialects, religious beliefs, music and foods of these African-rooted people are included along the route.

When it comes to keeping themselves alive, while rice farmed nearby (and as far back as Affrica) was in the people’s DNA and the African pods known as okra were beloved, shrimp became the crop that mattered. The region was perfect for shrimp, as the barrier islands – from the Outer Banks south to the Georgia Sea Islands – created hundreds of brackish bays and inlets, the sort of waters that shrimp prefer over the intense salt of the open Atlantic. After that, it was simply a matter of catching them and bringing them home to boil, steam, grill, saute or batter fry. Shrimp became the favored protein of the Gullah Geechee for the best reason anything ever happens anywhere with food: they had it.

Still, like other proteins in other cuisines, the shrimp people caught along the Carolina coast needed to be stretched to fill hungry bellies. And that’s where, as so often in the South, grits came in very handy. They (I believe grits are plural) are a cheap and highly transportable byproduct of growing corn, usually described as “boiled cornmeal.” Across the South, poor people developed such a love of grits that even what remained of the rich people did the same.

Being very mildly flavored, grits go with anything and everything, breakfast, lunch or dinner. In the quick, easy stews and sauces made by the Gullah Geechee with Lowcountry shrimp, grits found their truest love.

LOWCOUNTRY SHRIMP AND GRITS

Especially now that shrimp and grits can be (and is) celebrated as a regional dish all across the South, it is for better or worse a dish with thousands of variations. You name it, it probably can be found in, on or with shrimp and grits. Some versions are pretty much creamy Shrimp Alfredo, with grits where the pasta ought to be. To each his own. I think these versions miss the point. Here’s the basic recipe I’ve been making for more than twenty years. I learned it from a long-ago-enslaved Creole family in New Orleans, wearing its cultural and historical links to the long-ago-enslaved Gullah Geechee on its sleeve. I’ve tweaked it along the way, too.

1 tablespoon plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon plus 3 tablespoons butter

1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

Salt and pepper

Juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch scallions, chopped, white and green parts used separately

1 (10-ounce) package fresh white or cremini mushrooms, washed and chopped

1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup chunky tomato salsa

¼ cup dry white wine

Louisiana hot sauce, if desired

4 cups cooked grits

Heat the 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter to saute the shrimp just until pink, seasoning with salt and pepper. Squeeze lemon over the shrimp and remove from the skillet. Add the remaining olive oil and butter, using this to saute the white parts of the scallions with the mushrooms and fresh tomatoes until the mushrooms are tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add the garlic and stir for about 1 minute, being careful not to burn. Stir in the salsa and white wine. Return the shrimp to the skillet. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Season with a few drops of hot sauce and/or place the hot sauce on the table. Spoon the shrimp, mushrooms and sauce over the grits. Sprinkle with remaining scallions. Serves 4-6.

NOTE: If you prefer your shrimp and grits to be creamier, I’d suggest you try stirring in an additional 1-2 tablespoons of butter before you go running for the heavy cream. Heavy cream makes shrimp and grits taste like a hundred other dishes around the world, instead of being unique.