THE HUNT: AMAZING MAIZE
The staple of Mexican cuisine is solid and dependable as well as surprisingly adaptable. With a little knowledge and a few tips, Canadians will find it easily adoptable.
The staple of Mexican cuisine is solid and dependable as well as surprisingly adaptable. With a little knowledge and a few tips, Canadians will find it easily adoptable.
for a food that formed the nutritional bedrock for much of the western hemisphere over the past 4,000 years, maize is underappreciated. Certainly that is true in Canada, where we know that maize is a form of corn, but how it differs from our familiar yellow variety, and how we might enjoy serving it, is likely a mystery.
In fact, we often eat maize without realizing it. Every time we enjoy a corn tortilla or snack on a bag of corn nuts, we are eating some version of usually white maize, known to Mexicans as mais blanco, cacahuazintle, or mais pozolero, and to those of us in El Norte as hominy. Unlike sweet corn, hominy would still be inedible after a mere 10 minutes in boiling water. Instead, its outsized, tough grains are usually dried on the cob, sometimes taking on hues of red and blue, before undergoing a unique process that made it the staff of life for civilizations like the Mayans and Aztecs.
That process is called nixtamalization, and it is believed to have begun when somebody noticed that maize boiled along with ordinary wood ash takes on a vastly more palatable character. Slow-cooking like that produces calcium hydroxide, which softens the kernel, makes it easy to remove the tough hull, and, if it is meant to be dried again, prevents the germ from sprouting into a new plant. Most importantly, it drastically improves the nutritional capacity of corn by creating niacin (vitamin B3), without which the pre-nixtamal Mesoamericans suffered serious disorders. Nowadays, the trick is performed by a culinary grade of what’s called slaked lime—the lye-like chemical, not the fruit.
If you want to experience ancient corn, the easiest way is to buy masa harina, the dried, ground flour made from nixtamalized maize, of which Maseca is the brand most widely available in our supermarkets. It’s billed as an instant product, meaning you can fashion it into dough with just a little water and salt. That’s your tortilla dough, ready to be formed into a ball, flattened using a tortilla press, and cooked briefly on a dry pan. Why go to that trouble? Well, why would you make fresh bread? It’s just better. But if that’s a hassle, you might try Las Tortillas brand, made in northeast Calgary and sold in Co-op stores. Las Tortillas boasts of using the highest grade of masa available. Masa is also used for tamales, or tamale pies if you don’t want to go through the corn-husk rigmarole, and can be a gluten-free substitute for wheat flour in baking recipes.
But there’s one hominy dish that everyone should consider adding to their repertoire: pozole, a long-cooking soup that is one of Mexico’s foremost comfort foods. Typically it begins by simmering chunks of pork with liquefied chilies like guajillo, pasilla and ancho, and other aromatics. Originally that would have involved an entire pig’s head, but a big pork shoulder stands in nicely. Faster-cooking chicken versions are becoming more popular nowadays. Note that there are as many recipes as there are Mexican grandmothers. The red style is most common, but you can use poblanos and jalapenos for a green version, too.
The star, however, is hominy, typically cooked on the side and loaded into the broth to reach peak tenderness, the timing of which depends on the variety used. Most likely it will be a canned version like Juanita’s brand, available in super-jumbo size at Latin stores like Unimarket for $8. I did find a dried version there (Andinas, from Peru) whose flavour I think warrants the extra hassle. And that’s the kind you would soak before frying and salting to make your own corn nuts.
Mandatory fresh toppings on the table—white onions, radishes, avocados, lime, cilantro and shredded cabbage—complete the dish. Enjoy a spicy, textural symphony underpinned by popcorn-like flavour that is just as hard to describe as it is to stop eating.