Unbolted Wheat

[George]

Hasty pudding is the same as cornmeal mush. In late 18th century it was also called suppawn in the northeast, and even earlier, samp.

I’ve never used whole-kernel dried hominy, but the process of making hominy involves boiling dried corn with some form of lye, so it is basically cooked in the making. If it is then dried, you shouldn’t have to soak or cook it very long before use.

Masa is one version of dried, ground hominy. In the south and southeast, another version is what we know as grits.

Rocahominy is parched corn ground into meal. I’ve read early accounts of sugar being added to rockahominy when used as a trail food, but I think it was usually eaten plain.

Pinole is also parched corn ground into meal or even finer, but it has additional stuff added, seeds, spices, something to sweeten it a bit.

Spence

 

[Loyalist Dave]

You can simply soak the corn in the lye solution, you don't have to cook it.

All I know is the dried hominy that I get from the Amish store takes about 30-40 minutes of boiling to get to the same consistency as the canned hominy. :idunno:

I think there is a valid difference between Masa and grits... especially "stone ground" grits. I don't think one could really use grits for tortillas.

Mush is Hasty Pudding is Polenta... now you might find variations in preparation and seasonings, but it's corn meal and water. Try looking in the Hispanic foods aisle at the grocery store, or at a Hispanic market for "coarse" ground corn meal..I think Goya may market it. Try that after you have used commercial stuff like Indian Head corn meal.

Sometimes you can find unground/unrolled oats, known as oat groats, or the same thing in wheat, which is fun to boil up. That takes a while too.

Grits were really one of the first "fast foods".

LD

 

[crockett]

One of the old Foxfire Books had instructions for making hominy. A couple of wood boards were nailed into a trough with an open crack in the bottom and the trough filled with wood ash- not sure what type of wood- hardwood I think. Then a pail of water was slowly poured over the wood ash to leach out a liquid which was wood ash lye. Lye is poisonous- or so it said, the purpose of the lye was to wrinkle and peel off the hull of the dried corn kernal. Then you had to wash the lye off the hulled corn several times. The result was hominy.
Hominy was one of those foods I thought I'd like but the canned stuff wasn't very good. Grits are far better. Maybe I just never had good hominy.
On the Masa, my experience is that it has a much finer grind than meal. Tamales are sort of a New Year's Eve tradition and when I was a kid there were Tamale vendors (like hot dog vendors) around downtown Denver. I'm no tamale expert but I think the drill was to overlap some corn husks and "butter" them with uncooked masa dough (masa and water), then add on top shredded and spiced pork and then the thing was rolled up and each tamale gets stacked side by side in a baking dish and cooked. In any event the masa I'm familiar with is a fine grind.
BUT...talk about straying off topic. That Wah-to yah book, the trappers leaving Taos and heading back to St. Louis carried unbolted wheat meal that they boiled up into a "porridge". I'm figuring corn meal was known at the time and cooked the same way. I may be wrong but boiled corn meal seems to expand more than grits. As I said I never even knew you could boil plain old corn meal into anything you could eat. I've read a lot of camping books for modern day backpacking, etc. and it is never mentioned but boy-talk about a cheap, common thing to buy, easy to cook, easy to clean up,and good tasting.

 

[tenngun]

Jas towsend and sons offers some good cooking videos on you tube...of corse advetising his equipment. Not much to say on making hasty pudding/mush so he wonders a bit, but its fun watching his vids for some adaptations of 18th cent cooking.

 

[Treestalker]

There was an older lady named Jewel Williamson in the Settlement where I grew up who made hominy in the back yard from yellow field corn her husband Frank grew. It was so good if you put it on your head your tongue would slap your brains out trying to get to it! Tree.

 

[George]

Crockett, my father grew up in eastern Kentucky, and they made hominy routinely. They had that trough you mention. It was lined with grass, then the ashes were put on that. It was called an ash hopper. They left it out in the rain and just collected the lye which dripped into a container at the bottom. This was boiled down to concentrate it, then used to make hominy by adding some to the water in which corn was boiled. Once it had boiled enough that the hulls were loosened it was poured into a strainer, and it was then my father's job to take that to the creek and wash/rub off the hulls.

The lye was also used in making soap, of course.

Native Americans had figured this out a long time ago, and I have accounts of their doing it in a couple of ways. The Hidatsa of North Dakota just put ashes in water and let it steep awhile, then poured the water/lye off and added it to the boiling corn. The Shawnees did it more simply, just putting some wood ashes directly into the pot with the boiling corn.

Spence

 

[crockett]

Thanks. I had no idea NDN's made hominy.

 

[Carbon 6]

Mentioned in Wah to yah. What is it?

It's essentially Graham flour, a type of coarse-ground flour of whole wheat named after Sylvester Graham. It is similar to conventional whole-wheat flour in that both are made from the whole grain, but graham flour is ground more coarsely and is not sifted during milling (i.e. unbolted)

From the SAVANNAH [GA] REPUBLICAN, November 27, 1862, p. 1, c. 3 [For the Savannah Republican.]
Practical Hints for Hard Times.
"What man has done, man may do."
NO. IV.—FOOD.

6. GRAHAM BREAD, or bread made from unbolted wheat, is coarse and rather unpalatable, but it is far more nutritious than bread made from more costly flour, besides which, it will go nearly twice as far in housekeeping, and prove ten times more wholesome.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Carbon6, I grew up eating graham bread at my grandmothers house from a young age when I visited which was about every day or so. She sliced it thin, about 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick. We usually ate it with plenty of butter and a thick slice of cheese on top. We also learned to wash it down with coffee at a young age. My wife and some of the family thought it was DRY. I loved it. She baked it almost every day.

 

[appalichian hunter]

I like boiled corn meal mush with a splash of molasses, quick easy and good on a cold morning, if left over mush is placed in a bread pan and let cool you can slice it and fry in a bit of bacon grease till the edges are crispy plate and a bit of maple syrup on it. Hominy is a regular meal here with a fried ham steak and biscuits with ham gravy.