Children of the Corn

There is a Vietnamese sticky rice dish called xoi bap consisting of glutinous rice, fried shallot, crushed mung bean, sugar and corn. It wasn't until recently that I found out the corn is hominy or nixtamalized maize kernel. Searching reveals that it is also used in pozole, a Latin American stew.

It turns out pozole is served at my local bodega, Tierra Azteca. This "small" bowl ($5) came with hard-shelled tacos. It's a filling dish and the pork was tender, though there were pieces that were overly fatty. The tacos didn't soak up enough of the stew and their saltiness made the everything too salty. I think the stew would have gone well with some blander bread or baguette. I didn't taste much of the hominy except for the texture. All in all, a good stew to have as the weather turns cooler.

Of course, corn is one of the New World staples that spread throughout the world. But it is interesting to ponder how hominy made its way East. To bring things full-circle anecdotally, I learned from my Mom that when Vietnamese people arrived in the U.S. primarily after the war (circa 1975), they settled for corn in their xoi bap. It wasn't until they chanced upon Latin American stores that they found hominy. This knowledge then spread through the community, in this case to my grand-mother when she visited Orange County to see friends. Even today, you'll need to go to specialty stores to find it.