[FoxNews] The United States continues to be a house divided. The so-called Grits Belt lays it bare.
Political borders are well-defined, the line on the map matching the "welcome to" sign on the road.
On the other hand, cultural borders are undefined and unmarked — yet their existence is undeniable. The Grits Belt, largely a phenomenon in the eastern half of the country, is a perfect example.
It does not appear on a map, AAA guide or smartphone app. Yet it’s as obvious as the delicious joy that comes with eating the creamy ground corn drenched in butter and love.
"The Grits Belt is a real geographic phenomenon," Matthew Zook, a professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, told Fox News Digital.
"But like all cultures, it has porous and diffuse borders."
The Grits Belt separates an America in which grits are at best a novelty from an America in which grits are gloriously abundant.
Grits are rare in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
But during a drive south, New Yorkers will, without notice, enter the Grits Belt.
They will know only when they pull over at the country café and find grits on the menu with their sunny sides, shrimp or fried chicken.
Road-trippers from South Carolina, conversely, will at some undetermined point leave the Grits Belt.
They will know only when they look at a menu and find that meals come with some sort of potatoes: home fries with their eggs, French fries with fried fish, mashed potatoes with chicken dinner.
Zook and other scholars mapped the Grits Belt in 2014 on the website floatingsheep.org, by surveying geotagged posts on X (formerly known as Twitter).
"The South in general demonstrates a general preference for grits over the rest of the country," they wrote. |