ETV serves up 30th anniversary explorations of Southern staples

COLUMBIA — Any discussion of Southern cuisine cannot be considered complete without mention of two staples in every Southerner’s kitchen: grits and hash. This month, ETV is serving up two programs that explore these comfort foods in all their glory.

Both programs were directed and produced by acclaimed independent filmmaker and South Carolina native Stan Woodward, who has made a career out of documenting Southern culture and traditions — and in particular Southern cooking.

The first course is his 2001 film, “Carolina Hash: A Taste of South Carolina,” which airs at noon Dec. 13.

Traveling across the Palmetto State, North Carolina and Georgia, Woodward, in his patented “first person” filmmaking style, talks with tried-and-true hash gurus as well as folks who, maybe surprisingly, have never even heard of the culinary treat.

Throughout this easygoing trek through the South, Woodward continues to stir the pot as he dishes on the difference between Upstate beef hash, with its distinctive “twang,” and other varieties, while also exploring the rapidly disappearing black kettle hash traditions.

At 10 p.m. Dec. 18, ETV serves up Woodward’s 1978 film, “It’s Grits!” This 30th anniversary edition of the cult classic has been digitally re-mastered and restored, and features an interview with Woodward talking about everything from his entry into filmmaking to how he came up with the idea for “It’s Grits!”

After spending a couple of hours sitting in a diner on Columbia’s Main Street, Woodward said, “I noticed that no one who had come into that restaurant had eaten breakfast without grits. And it just sort of popped into my head, ‘Well, maybe that’s something I could do a film about.’”

Woodward spent the next four years traveling all over South Carolina, and even up to New York City, with camera in-hand and a simple question on his lips: “Excuse me. Do you eat grits?”

His guerilla-style of photography was groundbreaking, and allowed him to capture off-the-cuff responses that were sometimes strange, often hilarious, but always genuine.

The stories Woodward elicited from his question covered the spectrum, from a man who ate his grits with peanut butter and hot sauce, to another who displayed not only his current batch of “gritsicles” (think popsicles made of grits), but a wooden gritsicle mold he claimed dated back to the Civil War.

Another surprise was stopping a man on the streets of New York who turned out to be the then-food critic for the New York Times, Craig Claiborne. Claiborne, raised on grits as a boy in the Mississippi Delta, then threw on his apron and treated Woodward to the secrets to making a grits soufflé.

Thirty years later, “It’s Grits!” is far from stale. In fact, its appeal has only grown with time, simultaneously providing a snapshot of South Carolina in the late 1970s, while also showing the enduring connection we have to a simple food that is no less popular now than it has been for generations of Southerners.