Actually Making the Hominy

If you read my post "A Bit of Corn History"  you should understand why it is that knowing how to make hominy is so important.  Too many people put food into themselves without ever knowing just how dangerous it can be to eat.  It's also pretty dangerous to NOT eat, but still, most modern day people were raised in a system that keeps them safe from most of the problems that come from eating food.  Here in the U.S., it is government run agencies that inspect and regulate our food in the name of our safety.  This is a good thing and a bad thing, people dying of milk poisoning or eating foods covered in fecal matter is a bad thing. 

But sometimes we get a bit overzealous on our food laws, making it illegal to sell, buy, trade, and consume the foods that, for some people, just make common sense.   To limit government's power over us, we must first take it back.  This means we should know what foods we are consuming, the risks involved, and how to make our food supply as safe as possible.  Once we do this as individuals, we can demand that the government stop doing it for us.  First, however, we have to step up to the plate and prove that we can take care of ourselves.  For those who are doing it, this can get us a little ticked, but what we have to remember is that for a very long time now many have given up this responsibility.   They just grab food off the shelf and expect it to be safe.  So it has become the responsibility of the government to make sure it is safe.  If we want our rights, we must first retake our responsibility.   Many have become like children again, expecting the government to take over keeping them safe from the very food they eat.

Okay, off that soap box.

Making hominy is easy but very time consuming.  First start with a good, organic corn.  If you raise your own this is not a problem.  If you must buy it, you can check with the local feed lots and compare prices for organic corn.  Most have it today because the organic market is getting bigger and bigger everyday.  To have organic meat means it must be fed organic food.  This does not mean non-GM food though.  Corn can be organic and be genetically modified too.  If you want to have open pollinating corn as well as organic you can check at your local feed lot, but more than probably you will have to find the one or two farmers that still raise open pollinating corn in bulk and pay big prices for it.  I find it easier just to grow my own.  Most corns or corn products that you buy now adays will be GM.

So, now you have your corn.  You will need at least a couple of cup of your whole corn.  Chances are it will be directly from the field.  If you buy in bulk, that's a good bet.  Take that corn and rinse it well.  This will take all the dust and debris from the harvest out of it.  Then put your rinsed corn into a large either stainless steel or enameled pot and cover with approximately three times as much water.  Now you're going to let it set for 12 hours.  I did tell you this was going to take a long time, didn't I?  Yep, hominy for supper starts the night before.  Put your pot somewhere out of the way and forget about it for 12 hours.  I usually do this sometime in the afternoon so I can start the boil in the morning when it is cooler.  You time it for when you have the time to be boiling for 3 to 5 hours, because that will be the step after next.

Twelve hours later, take this corn out of the water you have it in and rinse it again.  While soaking extra little particles have been loosened so you want to wash them off.  Some of these particles can be hard and will make the finished hominy unpleasant to eat.  Rinse out your large pot as well because you're going to put the corn BACK into it.  Just in case I forgot to say this, this process takes a long time. :-)  Pour over the corn at least 3 times the amount of water as you have corn, just like before.  I usually like to put more than that amount of water into it, but at least three times the amount and still you want plenty of room left over in your pot because this stuff will foam up when your alkaline is added.  Bring this corn and water to a boil.

Now comes the fun part.  Well, it's fun for a couple of minutes anyway, then it goes back to being tediously boring.  You need to add an alkaline substance.  The most commonly used are lye, baking soda, food grade hydrated lime, or hardwood ash, with ash being the original source of the alkaline to make hominy.  More on that in a minute.  Baking soda is probably the safest one to use just because you will know the exact concentration of the alkaline and it isn't super powerful.  Hydrated lime is found at most places that sell canning supplies.  Lye is probably the most dangerous, but if you are use to working with it, it can be the easiest one to go with.  If you are new to lye, however, I don't know that this is the project I would start using it on.  I don't want to be one of those people who walk around saying scary things, but lye is a pretty caustic substance, and probably the first time you use it should not be in boiling water.   Then let's talk about the original- ash.

If you are going to use ash there are a few things to remember.  First, it should be hardwood ash.  Softwood ash not only is going to have a low PH value, it will give your corn an "off" flavor.  The other thing you need to do is have your ash well sifted.  Pieces of charcoal in the ash can block the alkaline properties of the ash. 

Your corn and water comes to a boil in your large, non-reactive pot you SLOWLY add you alkaline.  I'm using baking soda today because it is probably the easiest to get a hold of for most people.  A quarter to a half a cup of this is all you will need.  It will act like some mad science lab experiment and foam like mad for a minute or two.  This is why you need a large pot.  Keep everything boiling.  You should notice the corn changing colors from a yellow to a bright orange. 

 

 

 

Then turn the heat down until you get you get a slow boil.  Cover this and let it boil for three to five hours.  I'm sure somewhere along the line I said this was going to take a long time, but if I didn't--this is a long process. :-)

 

You can tell when the corn is ready to come off the fire when you see the "skins" of the corn start to slip.  I usually wait until I have quite a few skins built up along the side of the pot.  Start checking you pot after three hours.  If, after four hours, you aren't seeing any skins on the side of your pot, scoop out a spoonful, let it cool, and then see of the skins rub off.  If they do, you can turn off the boil.  If not, back on the fire for another hour. 

Once the skins are slipping you can dump the whole mass into a colander and start rinsing it out.  As soon as it is cool enough for you to stick your hands into the corn, start kneading and rubbing it to remove the skins.  Rinse and rub, rinse and rub until the water runs clear.

 

Now you have hominy.  It not hard to make but in today's. 'I want it and I want it now!' world working a day and a half just to get something to cook with seems a bit of a stretch.  You can cook with the whole posole, it's great in stews soups, chili, polenta, corn chowders...the list goes on.  Anything that you have normally cook corn with will work, it's just that now your body will be able to digest it without worrying about a niacin deficiency.  You can also grind it into a dough for tortillas or dry it for corn bread.

The whole reason I started this batch is because I am making Gv-No-He-Nv for a friend who has been having problems with her digestive tract.  I'll talk more about that soon.

So that's hominy, a safe way to eat a great deal of corn or maize.  If you are planning on making corn a major part of your diet, or if you are in a survival situation where corn is the only grain you have, making hominy is a way of keeping you healthy.  It is also a skill that most of our great grandmothers knew if they lived in the corn region.  They didn't waste a day and a half making hominy because it was something to do, they did it to keep their family alive.  Food is a sacred gift, but like all things, it has its good side and its bad side.  By knowing the very thing that we put into our sacred bodies we can minimize what is bad for us and maximize what is good.  Hominy is just one of those skills that falls into the 'good' category.