Hominy: What Is It and How Do I Cook It?

My first encounter with hominy was in a California supermarket.  A store employee was offering samples of Pozole, a traditional Mexican stew, and stacked on the table were cans of hominy.  The picture on the label showed large kernels of corn, so large that they could have been on steroids.  They tasted like corn, only more so. 

Hominy on the left, Corn on the right

Is hominy a new vegetable?  No.  Here’s how corn transforms into hominy: dried corn kernels are soaked in an alkaline solution, and that process causes the kernels to swell.  You can buy hominy in ready-to-eat form in cans or you can buy it dried in bags.

I bought a can and added a cup of hominy to homemade vegetable soup.  It was definitely a conversation-starter.

Letting Kids Control Your Menu

Stuff Your Own Tortillas (photo by Andy Mills)

When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I had almost no say in what the family ate for dinner.  My mother cooked it and served it, and my father, brother and I choked it down.  On Monday nights, if Dad was out at his Kiwanis dinner meeting, my brother Steve and I begged for Chef Boyardee Spaghetti.  It came in a can, and the noodles were as soft as pudding. 

I’m sure my mother obliged us because all she had to do was get out the can opener, dump the spaghetti into a pot and turn on the gas.  We lapped it up and begged for more.  It was the best-tasting dinner we were likely to have in any given week.

Flash forward to Sunday dinner...