Artichokes are delicious dipped in melted butter, but require instructions in tasty eating if you are unfamiliar with them. You only eat the fleshy bottom part of the leaves until you get to the heart, and you don't eat the hairy stuff surrounding the heart. Grits are kinda like the corn equivalent of cream of wheat, for lack of a better way to descibe it.
How did he get through the Army without being exposed to grits?