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Browned Hominy
Fry cooked hominy to a golden brown in just enough fat to prevent sticking. Bacon fat or other drippings are preferable to lard because of their flavor. Serve in place of "fried" potatoes.
OBSERVE THESE RULES IN MAKING QUICK BREADS Have all necessary utensils ready and ingredients together before starting work.
Sift flour before measuring. After combining dry ingredients, sift again to distribute the baking powder and seasoning evenly throughout the flour.
Measure shortening accurately and cut into the dry ingredients with spatulas or case knives. If a small amount of fat is used, as in muffins, it may be melted.
Beat the eggs in a bowl and add the liquid, then add gradually to the dry ingredients and beat the mixture thoroughly.
All ingredients should be kept as cold as possible, especially the liquid, and it is advisable to keep the shortening cold for biscuits and pie crust. Handle batter and dough mixtures as little as possible. Rolling and too much mixing develops gluten and tends to toughen the finished product. Quick Breads are baked at a temperature ranging from 350° to 450°F. They are sufficiently baked when golden brown in color, shrink slightly from the sides of the pan and when no batter clings to a toothpick that has been inserted in the center of the product. 2 cups flour 4 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons fat
A two-line use for leftovers, printed here beside a block of general quick-bread rules that belongs to the next recipe. The instruction that matters is the one about fat: use just enough to keep the hominy from sticking, and let it sit undisturbed long enough to form a crust.
- What "cooked hominy" meansIn this period the term covers both whole hulled hominy and thick-cooked hominy grits, and either could be cooked expressly or carried over from an earlier meal. Grits can be poured into a loaf pan, chilled until firm, then turned out and sliced about half an inch thick; whole hominy can go straight into the pan, drained and patted dry.
- Canned hominy worksDrain a 15-oz can, rinse, and dry the kernels well on a towel. Wet hominy steams instead of browning and will spit in the fat.
- Bacon fat and drippingsThe preference is a flavor judgment, not a technical one: the book prefers drippings because they add flavor of their own, not because lard performs worse in the pan. Bacon fat, beef drippings or, today, a neutral oil all brown hominy equally well.
- Heat and patienceMedium-high heat, a heavy skillet or cast iron, and no stirring for the first three or four minutes. Sliced grits need roughly 4-5 minutes a side; loose kernels want 8-10 minutes with only occasional turning.
- Season at the endThe recipe gives no seasoning instruction at all. If the hominy was not salted when cooked, salt and pepper it after browning so the surface stays dry enough to crisp.
- YieldThe original gives no yield. As a rough guide, about 3 cups of cooked hominy, or one loaf pan of set grits, will serve four alongside eggs or a chop.
- The stray quick-bread textEverything from "OBSERVE THESE RULES" onward is section boilerplate, and the trailing 2 cups flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons fat is the opening of a following recipe. None of it applies to the hominy.
Hominy is corn treated with an alkali - wood ash lye or slaked lime - which loosens the hull, swells the kernel and, as later nutrition work established, makes its niacin available to the eater. The process is Mesoamerican in origin and reached English-speaking cooks through Native peoples of the Southeast; the word itself is generally traced to an Algonquian term recorded in early Virginia. By the time of a cookbook like this one, hominy came from a can or a sack of grits rather than a lye barrel. Frying yesterday's cooled cereal into slices is the same thrift that produced fried mush, scrapple and fried polenta, and the note to serve it "in place of 'fried' potatoes" is a quiet reminder that these books were written for households counting both pennies and potatoes.