Milled Grains

In keeping with Montebello Kitchens’ promise to good health, our grains are stone-ground on a historic, water-powered mill built in the mid-1700s. Watching the water flow and the wheel turn evokes images of a simpler time, when food didn’t have to travel far to reach your plate. Montebello Kitchens recalls that bygone era with products that are handmade in small batches, with only the freshest local ingredients.

  Virginia Heritage Grits 

To most Southerners, breakfast without grits is unthinkable. Grits are served as a side dish for breakfast or dinner and are traditionally eaten with butter and milk.

Grits were most likely one of the first truly American foods, as the Native Americans ate a mush made of softened corn or maize. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh and his men met and dined with the local Indians. Not having a common language the groups could only communicate through food and drink. Raleigh’s men recorded notes on the foods served by the Indians making a special note about corn, “very white, faire, and well tasted.” When the colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, the Indians offered them bowls of boiled corn. In South Carolina, shrimp and grits has been a basic breakfast for fishermen and families for decades during the shrimp season.

Grits are not just for breakfast anymore, they are served for brunch, lunch, and dinner.  Montebello Kitchens Heritage Stone Ground white grits are ground from corn not hominy ( which is corn soaked in lye to remove the shell) and have more flavor than commercially available grits. Six wonderful ounces of stone ground All Natural White Grits. Stone grinding guarantees the traditional flavor that makes our grits so popular.

  Virginia Chicken Dredge 

Gordonsville’s Legendary Chicken Vendors

Early trains did not have dining cars and passengers had to eat at trackside establishments. In Gordonsville, Virginia the “Chicken Vendors” greeted the waiting railroad cars with trays of fried chicken balanced on their heads and baskets of rolls hanging from their arms, selling fried chicken to passengers through the open windows.

In keeping with Montebello Kitchens’ promise to good health, the flour used in the Chicken Dredge originates from Virginia-grown wheat, stone-ground for Montebello Kitchens at a historic, water-powered mill built in the mid-1700s.

  Virginia Cornbread Mix 

Corn bread is a product of cultural exchange. Native Americans were cooking with ground corn long before the European explorers ever arrived at the New World. The food we know today as “corn bread” has a northern European culinary heritage. Food historians say that Native Americans roasted their corn and ground it into meal to make cakes, breads, and porridges. The cakes and breads helped the early settlers survive those first harsh years. After awhile, American dishes were being created using corn, one of which was an Indian bread called pone’ or corn pone’ made of cornmeal, salt and water and with a few changes to the recipe later became known as corn bread.

Before he was president when he was a young man, Abraham Lincoln boarded at the Rutledge Tavern in New Salem, his diet consisted largely of cornbread, mush, bacon, eggs, and milk. A family favorite of President Harry Truman was cornmeal dumplings with turnip greens.  Montebello Kitchens Corn Bread mix is made using stone ground Virginia grown wheat and corn.

  Virginia Spoon Bread Mix 

Six ounces of spoon bread mix. A unique dish based on yellow corn meal, eggs and milk.

Spoon bread is one of the oldest corn recipes. Corn was the backbone of Appalachian cooking, and has been used over the last century to make corn muffins, corn sticks, hoecakes, and spoon bread. Possibly from Yankee influence, sugar began to appear in more modern recipes of spoon bread. Most Southerners did not use sugar in their spoon bread and sugar was never used in Appalachian recipes.

A little favorite food history. James Monroe crossed the Delaware with George Washington, fought at the Battle of Trenton, and survived the winter at Valley Forge with Benedict Arnold, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette.  Monroe returned to Virginia and studied law under Thomas Jefferson, served as governor of Virginia and was appointed as U.S. Minister to France. James Monroe developed a taste for French cuisine, but biographers say he retained a fondness for fried chicken, Spoon Bread, and other simple foods of his Virginia youth.