In a recent issue of Smithsonian magazine, I spied an article about Native Harvest and the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota. They spoke of having real Wild Rice – actually wild and collected by canoe (not cultivated as with wild rice sold in the stores.) Intrigued, I went to the website. What fun for a foodophile! Real, natural, minimally processed food! I ordered a couple of pounds of wild rice – and a couple of bags of hominy.

Hominy is not something I grew up with in San Francisco. Other than hominy grits when I was in the Navy, it just wasn’t part of my dietary routine. But my grocery store treks and natural curiosity about food found me buying dried hominy every once in a while – and then wondering what to do with it!

Posole has been the usual dish – it’s a stew of sorts, usually made with pork and peppers, simmered for hours and just plain ol’ good. The native harvest hominy looked interesting – and am I glad I bought some!

It is probably the closest thing our ancestors had when they arrived here many moons ago! Just flat-out great!

So… I made Posole.

I didn’t follow a recipe, I just threw things into the pot. I simmered some pork for a couple of hours until it was fall-off-the-bone tender. I added onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes… LOTS of chipotle powder and other chili powders from the cabinet, salt and pepper, and a bit of cloves. I then added the cooked hominy, and let it simmer even longer.

What a treat.