That hominy again…

Eastside Road, —

…AND ANOTHER MEMORY of hominy. I'm not sure we ate it often before 1944, when we left California, in the summer, to spend a year in Oklahoma: my grandmother's second husband had just died, and Dad wanted to help her out, installing electricity and running water in her house before another hard winter was upon her. (Come to think of it I'm not sure what my dining memories are from the war years, 1942-1945, when so much was rationed — though I do remember looking up at a can of sliced pineapple on a top shelf of the little neighborhood grocery store; no one ever had enough ration points to buy it…) The dinner-table in Oklahoma was of course quite different from anything I'd been used to, for reasons both of cuisine and ingredients. Much came from Grandma's garden, chicken house, and her milk cow. And soon after we arrived there was a hominy-making session: a number of women gathered to shuck corn and strip it from the cobs — was it dried? I don't think so. Then it was put to soak in water with ashes from the stove; and then after many rinses it was cooked and served. Many rinses, but not quite enough, I think. It tasted soapy. I can still remember the taste, something like the smell of socks washed in Fels Naptha and, again, not quite sufficiently rinsed. It was a hard life. Tonight's was much better. Canned, of course; and cooked with Franco's delicious chorizo, and onions, and scattered with cilantro…

Rosé, La Ferme Julien (Var), 2014: clean and serviceable.

☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants