Composition and Hominy

Loyal readers will no doubt recall the circumstances of the Great South African Samp Scare, when I feared I had eaten an entire bowl of gluten accidentally (as opposed to eating an entire plateful on purpose, which is a catastrophe of a completely different sort).

Later that fateful day, frenzied internet research revealed that the samp accompanying my beef curry and beans was the same thing as cracked hominy and I retired for the night secure in the knowledge that my status as a gluten-freedom fighter extraordinaire (to that point, anyway) remained unsullied.

This past weekend, motivated by the possibilities of a whole new side-dish species, I selected a pound-bag of white hominy (known to the good folks at Goya as Maiz Trillado Blanco) from the exotic foreign foods aisle at Wegmans. As is my wont, I read the label with scrupulous care and found that the nutritional story was mixed. Of fat (grasa), cholesterol (colesterol); and sodium (sodio) there was nada - but neither was there any substantial benefit in the way of vitamins or minerals such as calcium. But - to my great felicidad - I found that a mere quarter-cup of cracked corn goodness yielded a full 56% of my USDA recommended daily intake of hierro - dire lack of which had served as my current conflict's opening salvo.

I bought two bags and hurried them to my casa.

Needing some inspiration for this new addition to my pantry, I happily perused my most-recent dead-tree purchase, South Africa Eats by Phillippa Cheifitz, obtained at one of Tambo International Airport's finer newsagents. While reading the recipe for Slow-Cooked Beef with Herbed Samp, I made the following somewhat vague yet unwelcome discovery:

Samp is stamped and coarsely broken dried corn kernels
similar to the coarse hominy of America,

but the two are produced by different processes.

Oh, for crying out loud.

Back to the internet I went!

According to Wikipedia, samp is 'a protocol used to encode role-based and user-based access control attributes for transmission over a network, typically embedded in a TCP/IP or UDP/IP packet, with an application layer payload trailing afterwards.'

Um ... that doesn't seem right ... Here's a better web definition:

Samp is dried corn kernels that have been stamped

and chopped until broken, but not as fine as Mielie-meal or mielie rice.

The coating around the kernel loosens and is removed

during the pounding and stamping process.

From The Serengeti Restaurant in sunny Murrays Bay, New Zealand (of all places) I learned that

samp is boiled up with beans and other vegetables and is known as gnush.

A traditional dish enjoyed by the Xhosa tribe in the Transkei and Eastern Cape
(Nelson Mandela's home!) of South Africa and also
enjoyed in Swaziland (known as umngqusho).

I already knew that last part.

Seemed straightforward enough. But how was that different from the hominy I'd purchased only hours before?

Well, it turns out that both samp and hominy are made from de-hulled corn kernels, but that traditional hominy undergoes nixtamalization with an alkali solution - indeed, the masa used to make tamales is merely hominy ground to a fine mash. What is kind of fascinating is that samp turns out to be a Native American word (probably of Narragansett origin), adopted by early New England interlopers to mean corn cereal. Both the word and the grain somehow made its way to Africa (like peanuts and cheeseburgers), where it quickly became a dietary staple (ditto).

Isn't that cool? It makes me want to become a culinary anthropologist when I grow up so I could study this sort of stuff all day.

At any rate, I cooked up my corn sort-of-how I remembered it and came up with an awesome dish that I served under poached salmon to rave reviews. Whatever you choose to call it, it's really really good.

And it might even make you magnetica.

Fractured Amy's South-African Style Hominy with Beans

Rinse about 8 oz cracked hominy (or samp if you can get it) and cover it with cold water to soak overnight.

The next day, put the grain in a saucepan and add water or vegetable stock to cover. I used a mixture of both because I didn't have enough leftover stock in the fridge. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 40 minutes or until it's tender.

Meanwhile, rinse and drain about 6 oz of canned beans. I used Great Northerns that I found in the pantry, but cannellini beans or any other smallish white bean would be appropriate.

To the beans, add:

• a bunch of spring onions, sliced thin.
• 6 peppadews®, chopped. Any mild/sweet bottled pepper would do, I suppose, but then your dish wouldn't be authentically South African.
• a handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped. I used some from my garden - the first harvest of the season!
• the grated zest of one orange, plus a few squirts of the juice.

When the hominy/samp is cooked, drain it and add it to the bean mixture. Check for seasoning (I added several grinds of black pepper and a bit of salt, too) and accompany with your favorite protein. I served the dish warm, but it would also be nice at room temperature as a summer salad.