hominy

/hom"euh nee/, n.

whole or ground hulled corn from which the bran and germ have been removed by bleaching the whole kernels in a lye bath (lye hominy) or by crushing and sifting (pearl hominy).

[1620-30, Amer.; < Virginia Algonquian (E sp.) uskatahomen, usketchamun a nominalized pass. v., lit., that which is treated (in the way specified by the unidentified initial element), here prob. that which is ground or beaten]

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▪ corn

      kernels of corn, either whole or ground, from which the hull and germ have been removed by a process usually involving a caustic agent. Hominy was traditionally prepared by boiling the corn in a dilute lye solution made from wood-ash leachings until the hulls could be easily removed by hand and flushed away with running water. In the modern commercial technique, the corn is boiled in dilute sodium hydroxide, and the hulls are removed by the combined action of rotating cylinders and running water.

      Wood-ash lye is still often employed in this process to impart calcium to the kernels. Hominy can be made in the home by soaking dried, shelled corn in a baking-soda solution and then removing the hulls.

      Hominy is perhaps most familiar in the form of coarsely ground grits, boiled and served with butter, gravy, or syrup for breakfast or shaped into cakes and fried. Grits from white corn are processed into cornflake cereals. Hominy is also sometimes used in brewing and in the manufacture of wallpaper paste.

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