Dr bill isn't samp just the northern word for grits?

in the Heavy (silver Pig) thread-- CK mentioned that corn is hard to digest--

Modern sweet corn is only marginaly hard to digest (but is sure made me ill when i was pregnant!)

but indian corn or field corn is very hard to digest-- the hull of the kernal resist stomach acids.. one way around this, is to soak the corn in a mild lye solution, which desolves the hull, and at the same time changes the protein into a more readily digested form--Hominy

both grits and samp are forms of hominy. and after being processed, both are cooked again with hot water to make a sort of mush (which is a word that sounds awful, but a good mush is so good!)

an other way around this, is to dry the corn and grind it.. but the hulls are so hard, that without power grinding, (wind or water) the calories expended in hand grinding the corn are more than you take in.. making it a net loss..

still it was done, and ground corn was cooked into a mush too.. today its commonly called polenta (oh yet an other word on the theme of the week!) but it was also cooked with molasses, and if done in an open pot, it became a hasty pudding-- left overs reappeared as anadama bread..(a bread made of hasty puding and wheat flour)

one more way to get past the husk and to the protein and starch in the kernal was to fry them.. Pop corn!
i heard that a kind of pop corn was used as breakfast food.

Unlike modern popcorn, all selected for having the right moisture level to pop big and white, the fried corn was not so big and fluffy, and the popped kernals where cooked again in liquid.. the popping was to burst the husk-- and make it easier to get to the protein inside.

(and while this is verging on being a food thread, there is hominy, and anadama, and samp and lots of other good words...)


my other obsession