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Chef David Guas of Neutral Ground Bar and Kitchen in McLean, Virginia, gets the white corn grits for the restaurant’s signature grits and grillades at the reconstructed gristmill on George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. A WHUT Public Television episode documents Guas making the trip weekly at the time the program was recorded or published; it does not establish that the routine continues today.
Where David Guas sources the grits
In WHUT Public Television’s Signature Dish | Let’s Brunch, Guas says he is at Mount Vernon to collect white corn grits for the restaurant’s signature brunch dish, grits and grillades. The episode narrator describes Mount Vernon as a stop Guas makes once a week to source a special ingredient. That weekly schedule belongs to the episode’s account, not necessarily to his current routine.
The program identifies Guas’s restaurant as Neutral Ground Bar and Kitchen in McLean, Virginia. It does not provide a recipe, detailed description of the dish, or a retail brand for the grits. Nor does it establish that grits sold to consumers are the same product as those Guas obtains at the mill.
What Mount Vernon’s food history includes
Mount Vernon’s foodways should not be reduced to a modern farm-to-table story. The estate’s official accounts describe a food system sustained by farms, gardens, the Potomac River, and the labor of enslaved people.
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Food from the estate and river
Mount Vernon’s Cooking at Mount Vernon overview says households in the 18th century relied heavily on food grown or raised on their own land. The Washington household drew on the estate’s farms and the Potomac, including wheat, vegetables, and fish. The official Kitchen history gives further detail: enslaved laborers grew and harvested much of the household’s food, including wheat and corn, garden vegetables, orchard fruit, fish, and ham from hogs raised on site.
The people who did the work
Enslaved workers performed both agricultural labor and the demanding work of preparing meals. Mount Vernon names enslaved cooks Doll, Hercules, Nathan, and Lucy, and describes the kitchen’s heat, smoke, long hours, and skilled work. The estate’s history also distinguishes the Washington household’s table from the rations provided to the enslaved community. Those differences matter when describing who produced and prepared the food, and under what conditions.
Quick Recap
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- FROM HUMBLE ROOTS: Carolina Grits Company is nestled on the banks of the Tar River in Nash County, North Carolina. Family owned and operated, the mill produces small batch grits and cornmeal varieties of the highest quality.
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- Charleston Favorites Grits are made from select Southern corn and ground on an authentic millstone; These stone-ground grits cook up smooth and creamy to serve alongside bacon and eggs, or as the star of your shrimp and grits; Enjoy the small flecks of corn bran they're the sign you're eating bonafide stone ground grits
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What the episode establishes—and what it doesn’t
- Established by the episode: Guas goes to Mount Vernon’s reconstructed gristmill for white corn grits used in Neutral Ground’s signature grits and grillades; the narrator describes the visit as weekly.
- Not established: Whether Guas still makes the trip weekly, the grits’ brand or milling specifications, a complete dish recipe, or whether a consumer product is identical to the grits obtained at the mill.
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