Seeing her unaware of "grits," Kareem explained to her: "Grits is like cream of wheat but it's more like rice. Um, it's like little teeny teeny teeny teeny." Getting the overall idea about grits ...

Hominy grits was a cream-of-wheat-type cereal popular in the south, and here it was on a supermarket shelf in Bethpage, New York. The grits would add texture, just as gravel does in concrete.

Take, for example, the recipe for grits. "It's corn," Boone, 89, tells PEOPLE of the Southern staple. "It's just like mashed potatoes. It's like cream of wheat. And it's very nutritious.