Hog And Hominy



	May not be reproduced without permission - Vickie Rumble



	"Hog and hominy" is a term used throughout early history in this country to refer to pork and corn which was prepared in many ways. Hog and hominy is a term that was used both in the North and South, however, perhaps more so in the South. Perhaps the reason the two were used so often together is because early pioneers, slaves, and Southern civilians during the War Between the States often owned only one cooking pot and ingredients of various types were prepared together.

	Hogs were generally butchered in the fall when the weather was cool enough the meat could be processed without fear of it spoiling. Curing consisted of salting, smoking, or a combination of the two. In the days of no refrigeration it was necessary to preserve the meat in such a manner that it would not spoil from one season to the next.

	Hams shoulders, bacon, etc. were preserved whole, tidbits here and there were ground into sausage, and the organ meats such as liver were eaten fresh when the animals were butchered. No part of the animal was wasted. The head was boiled down an dcombined with spices to make souse or hogs head cheese, and fatback remained a staple in Southern kitchens into the 20th century.

	Corn is uniquely an American staple which Christopher Columbus most likely transported on his return trip in l492. From there it spread throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Other explorers also discovered it in proliferation throughout Mexico. American Indians had refined the growing process such that it was very productive and a staple of their diet. Jamestown settlers put their all into growing the golden grain to stave off starvation after being supplied with seed by the Powhatan tribe who also taught them methods for growing it.
	The Indians were making hominy and taught the settlers how to prepare it.

	Corn in its fresh state lasts a short time so it was imperative that early settlers learn how to preserve it as well. Drying was the only option in the early days and this was accomplished in two ways. Corn was gathered fresh and dried like fruit after being cut from the cob, or it was dried in the field then gathered and stored for winter.

	The first method yielded a substance similar to creamed corn when prepared. The corn was first soaked anywhere from l2 to 24 hours in water then boiled until tender. Green beans may be dried for storage and cooked in a similar manner.

	Corn which had been dried in the field presented a problem in that the husks or hulls on the kernels were tough and unpalatable. The corn could be ground into meal and the husks sifted out or made into hominy. The name hominy can refer to more than one product. Hominy refers to the product we recognize today where as "small" hominy refers to a coarsely ground corn which was used in many ways. Small hominy is a Southern term and its Northern equivalent was samp. The product was the same, the name varied with region.

	With this coarsely ground product it was necessary to remove the husks from the corn. The process took place over time beginning with the collection of hardwood ashes from the fireplaces during the winter. Water filtered through these ashes produced lye, a caustic brownish liquid. The corn was first soaked in the lye solution and then cracked in a hominy block. The husks could then be removed and the corn was ready to prepare.

	The hominy block was a much valued mechanism in early America. It was made by sawing a good size tree off 3 to 4 feet above the ground and hollowing out the inside of the stump. A block of log with limbs sawed off for handles was then tied with rope to the limb of a nearby overhanging tree such that it dangled over this hollowed out tree stump. To crack the corn and produce samp or small hominy the log block was pulled down and pounded the corn which had been placed inside the hollow of the tree stump. Overall a very effective process. The leverage of the tree limb pulled the block back up with less labor.

	Hominy most often refers to the vegetable-like dish. Grains of corn were boiled in the lye solution until the hulls began to loosen. This may be accomplished by pouring water through the ashes to collect the lye solution or more often the corn was simply boiled with ashes added to the water. When the hulls began to loosen the corn was washed repeatedly to remove the husks and any traces of ashes. When this had been accomplished the corn was returned to the pot and simmered until tender with seasoning of choice. It was sometimes combined with salt and pork, and sometimes with cream, sugar or molasses, and butter.

	The samp or small hominy was often used as an ingredient in bread or boiled dinners. If ground fine enough the product is referred to as grits which might have been used to make bread or boiled into a porridge. It was also used as a thickening agent in puddings. In November, l869 the Ladies Repository published a receipt for pudding which could be made with hominy. It contained chopped apples, raisins, currants, lemon juice, sugar, and one of the following: barley, sago, tapioca, well cracked wheat or hominy. "The latter, the New England 'samp' and the Southern 'small hominy' makes a wholesome hearty pudding, more delicate by increasing the amount of apple..."

	An 1865 receipt for batter cakes instructs the cook to boil two cups of small hominy until soft and add an equal quantity of meal. Salt to taste was added with three eggs and enough milk to make up into a batter. Waffles were made using small hominy as a base, but with wheat flour added to the batter instead of meal.

	Hominy is one of the most enduring of American foods, and receipts are found for it from early days to present. Hominy was proclaimed to be an excellent breakfast food, often served with molasses, honey, or maple syrup. It was interchangeable with buckwheat cakes as a breakfast fare and usually served with bacon or sausage if meat were prepared. Chicago ladies were said to have a sweet tooth for which they kept a jug of syrup ever ready on the table "to be poured over the hominy cakes or crumpets."

	Hominy was thought to promote digestion especially in children and was often served at spas where Americans visited mineral springs for their health such as White Sulphur Springs.

	Diets of the American people through the 19th century were often lacking in proper vitamins and nutrients. A typical meal might have consisted of corn dodgers, butter, hominy, and coffee. Abraham Lincoln stated his family had wheat bread on Sunday and corn dodgers every other day.

	Horace Greely stated in a speech delivered in 1871 in New York after travelling through Texas that Texans were often, "...weeks without flour, bread, and very rarely had either cheese, butter, or milk, 'hog and hominy' were his staples for diet; fruit he seldom tasted, and Tobacco and Whiskey were his only luxuries."

	The use of hominy and meal was never as popular in France, England and Ireland as it was in America. The French raised Indian corn to feed farm animals but rarely used it for bread. While "not unknown" in English homes hominy was never served with any regularity, therefore, in an effort to acquaint immigrants from England and Ireland with corn and its many uses Eliza Leslie wrote a manual of receipts using corn in 1846. Receipts for hominy were included.

	Godey's Lady's Book gave a receipt for hominy bread in 1860. This contained flour, yeast, water, and hominy. A Godey's notation in 1864 stated there were three sizes of hominy and that large hominy was eaten as a vegetable. Smaller hominy was recommended as a breakfast food.

	Because of its oil content corn generally did not keep well once it was ground and separated from the hulls so the familiar hominy block was used every few days to produce enough samp or small hominy for the family's use. Corn was also taken fairly often to the gristmill to be ground into meal or small hominy rather than grinding a large quantity at one time. In 1858 the Fell brothers, proprietors of the Faulkland Spice Mills, reported their hominy was produced using a new method and, "...that it resists the effects of any climate, and keeps sweet and good for years." How truthful this claim was is not known.

	Hog and hominy was also an essential part of the diet of western pioneers. The pioneer women of the west prepared it as they had prior to leaving their homes and it was served with sweetened water, molasses, or the gravy from fried meat. Johnny cake or "pone" was the only bread available and it was served at every meal.

	The American Farm Book in 1858 referred to hominy prepared from the whole grain corn as "hulled corn" and pronounced it, "a most convenient and acceptable dish..." The cracked grain was referred to as "hominy or samp" and was prepared by boiling in water. Cooks were told in this publication that by adding the small hominy to wheat or rye flour it imparted an additional sweetness to the batter.

	In 1848 the Southern Literary Messenger compared the meals served in American homes to those served in England. The Southern planter was said to serve the most lavish meals and the table, "groans with flesh, fowl, game, vegetables, pastries, and fruits. With such melons and peaches as they have at this season it seems a profanation to be doing much else in the way of dessert, yet Southern housewives do it. Virginians eat hot corn bread at dinner, though wheaten bread is offered. Bacon (for they use the word in its strict English acceptation) is uniformly at the head of the table; and hominy is as indispensable as potatos with us..."

	Virginia and Texas were by far not alone in their consumption of corn bread. In 1849 Debow's Review reported that in Kentucky it was easily possible to hunt bear, deer, and buffalo to provide meat, and the "whole system of husbandry, at the first settlement of the country, was to raise a little Indian corn for bread and hominy."

	Hominy was perhaps never valued more than by Southern civilians during the War Between the States. Diarists often write of it, and sometimes it and meal were the only foods available to them for long periods. Hominy has always been inexpensive to make, however, the process of cooking it is very labor intensive. Southern women could prepare enough to last 2 or 3 days without fear of spoilage, and it was often eaten at every meal.

	Mary Ann Harris Gay of Decatur, Georgia wrote in her diary that she visited the Union camps after the soldiers left and picked up corn dropped by horses as they were eating. She took it home and washed and dried it and took it to a gristmill which was still in working order where she had the corn ground into meal. When she arrived home with the half bushel of meal she found a mother and hungry children there to beg food. She not only shared her meager fare with them, but invited them in while she prepared it so that the children might have food quicker. Hominy was a staple in the diets of people in that area, especially after Sherman's infamous "March to the Sea".

	Georgia was no exception. When Union Gen. James H. Wilson's troops converged near the North Alabama community of Gravelly Springs Sgt. Will Pepper noted in his diary that the area was destitute and that obtaining food from an area already depleted of supplies would be difficult. Even though civilians in this area were literally facing starvation it did not hamper Pepper from occasionally recording the success of foraging parties in taking what meager supplies the citizens had. An entry from January 25, 1865 stated they had returned with meat, chickens, and corn.

	General Wilson recorded in his diary after the war that it was a mercy they found "hog and hominy" enough to sustain them in that land with, "neither turkeys or chickens".

	Probably because of its widespread use prior to the war and because it is light and easily transportable, the U.S. Army included it in its 1861 regulations under rations. "Desiccated compressed potatoes, or desiccated compressed mixed vegetables, at the rate of one ounce and a half of the former, and one ounce of the latter, to the ration, may be substituted for beans, peas, rice, hominy, or fresh potatoes." For every one hundred rations the Army issued among other items ten pounds of rice or hominy. Since one quart of molasses was also issued perhaps these items were combined as was customary prior to the war for morning fare. Hominy was listed as selling for five cents per pound, as was rice. Wastage for the hominy was estimated not to exceed one percent. Southern soldiers whose food stores were in constant short supply no doubt appreciated the benefits of hominy as well.

	Hominy was a constant part of the diet of slaves, "You will observe that the children are all taken care of and fed during the day at the nursery, upon corn bread and fat, and hominy and molasses".

	The same article written in 1849 stated, "At a certain signal upon the cook-house bell, the young gang came up in fine order to the yard for their dinner; this consisted of meat gravy and small pieces of meat, thickened with broken corn and boiled hominy seasoned with salt and lard, to which is occasionally added molasses.

	Their dependence on hominy did not diminish after the war years. DeBow's Review reported in June 1867, "The garnering of the wheat crop will contribute to allay the suffering, by furnishing subsistence to the whites, and to stock, but much of this crop will have to be exported in exchange for corn and meat for the freedmen, 'hog and hominy' being essential to their existence."

Hominy remained an essential part of American diets throughout the end of the 19th century as can be attested to by the number of published receipts. In 1870 Julia Colman reported in the Ladies Repository, "Cracked corn is the 'samp' of the Northern market, and the wide-spread 'hominy' of the South. The home-manufactured article where only a part of the outside skin is rubbed off, is better than that in the market for the latter is deprived of the nutritious 'chit' also. Wash either of these, pouring off all that floats, and boil slowly five or six hours....It should not be stirred, nor should it be permitted to cool while cooking. It eats very acceptably with meats, and it might often, with great advantage in taste and economy, be made to take the place of potatoes....For variety, especially in rewarming, eggs may be added. Have ready broken two or three to the quart, and when the corn is heated through and is simmering, remove from the fire, add the eggs immediately, stir thoroughly, and serve at once."

Mrs. Colman stated that samp also made an excellent dish when cooked with white beans. "It is a common practice in some parts of the South to add a fifth or a sixth part beans when the corn is half done, and let them cook together."

She stated for a breakfast dish hominy or small hominy was more often used. "Pour one pint into two quarts of slowly boiling water, stirring close and let it steep slowly." The mixture was to be served not quite thin enough to drip from a spoon with a soft boiled egg broken over it, and eaten with cream or syrup. She described samp as a New England product of corn which was cracked too coarsely to go through a sieve. She stated if made of yellow corn it took longer to cook, but was sweeter and more nutritious.

Mrs. Coleman instructed the cook to remove the hulls with a fork as fast as the kernels needed to be eaten. This would tend to indicate that small hominy or samp which had been ground in a mill was ground without previously removing the hulls from the corn as was mentioned earlier.

Harriet Beecher Stowe gave a receipt for hominy stew in her 1873 cookbook. Hominy was combined with fresh meat, water, salt, sugar, pepper, and vinegar and simmered four to five hours. The receipt stated that a little salt pork improved the flavor. She also gave a receipt for hominy cooked as a dinner vegetable with the remainder being kept to add to muffins or griddle cakes the next morning for breakfast.


HOW TO MAKE HOMIINY AS IT WAS DURING THE 1860'S

My grandmother, Mary Jannie Killen Gray, taught me to make hominy as she was taught by her grandmother who was a rural North Alabama woman during the war years. I will relate her method as she taught me.

The variety of corn known as "dent" corn because of the shape of its kernels is much desired for making hominy, although if not available any corn can be used. When gathered in the fall it should be shelled from the cob with the kernels on each end disposed of. The kernels in the center of the cob which are free from insect damage are to be used for making hominy.

Hardwood ashes should be sifted to remove all but the fine ash. This is combined with the dried corn and the lye from the ashes will when boiled cause the hulls to separate from the corn kernels. My grandmother's method of doing this was to tie the ashes in a muslin bag and drop the bag into the cook pot. This greatly reduces the amount of labor required to wash the hominy free of the ashes.

The measurement for corn and ash were never actually measured out so after my grandmother passed away and I had to make hominy for the first time by myself I had to do a little research to make sure I had the ratio of corn and ashes correct. Field and Fireside reported on March 14, 1863 that hominy was now considered a good substitute for bread. Their instructions were to one gallon of corn add a half gallon of good ashes. While this would require a very large pot and make a tremendous amount of hominy it confirmed for me the ratio of half ash to a whole of corn was standard. I reduce these ingredients by half. The kernels will swell to almost double their size during the cooking process so what looks like a small amount in the beginning ends up being a large pot by the time it is cooked.

I recommend hanging the pot over the fire because you need enough constant heat under the pot to simmer well for most of the day. Placing coals under the dutch oven will require continuous replenishing of coals to keep the mixture cooking. Add the corn, the bag of ashes, and cover well with water. Add water as needed as it cooks so that it doesn't boil dry. Bring to a boil and simmer until the hulls begin to separate from the kernels. Remove the ash bag, and drain the water from the pot. Rub the kernels between your hands in a pot or bucket of clean water to remove the hulls, a little at a time. It will require several washings to remove all the hulls and ashes.

When clean, return the corn to the pot, cover with fresh water, and bring to a boil. Add salt, and fat back or butter to taste and simmer until the corn is tender, again adding water as needed to prevent scorching. This process will take all day so do not expect to finish quickly. The hominy will keep overnight without chilling and can easily accommodate an evening meal with the left-overs reheated for breakfast.


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