While grits are gaining popularity above the Mason-Dixon line, the Southern mainstay still remains a mystery for many. The Boston Globe recently broke it down for Northeastern readers, again relying on UGA historian James C. Cobb, who says that grits have gained an identity outside of itself as a mere foodstuff. “There are all these spin-off things,” he says, “like grits as an acronym for Girls Raised in the South. It’s become one of [those] things that’s taken on a life of its own.”