This Saturday we’ll have a starchy dried corn called La Montosa available. This is unprepared flint corn and can be ground for polenta or prepared in the Mexican manner by soaking it in cal (lime, which we’ll also have available) and then rinsing. This is nixtamal, at that point. You can use it for tortilllas or pozole. Joan won’t have instructions so don’t give her too hard a time, please.
Localvores should note the corn was grown in Stockton. It’s non-certified organic and an heirloom variety originally from Jalisco, Mexico.
Edited to add: I’m leaving for Mexico next week (Oh! How I love typing those words!) but when I get back, we’ll add the corn to the website so you can order it online.
Rancho Gordo: Experiments from my mostly New World kitchen and gardens 
January 24, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
Any chance you’ll be offering it ground into polenta? (Pretty please?) We like the Full Belly Farm cornmeal, but it’s too soft/fine for making polenta.
January 24, 2008 at 3:41 pm |
It’s pretty much out of my skill set, I’m afraid. Can you use a Kitchen Aid attachment? There is a woman here in Napa who grinds. Maybe I’ll check with her. Even cooler would be the Old Bale grist mill upvalley. It’s a working mill but the health department won’t allow it to go commercially.
January 25, 2008 at 12:47 pm |
I don’t own the KA grain mill; I seem to recall looking into it when the whole locavore thing kicked off, and it was prohibitively expensive — like $130, which seems rather spendy for something I’d use rarely and that can only do one thing. :S
If your local grinding source pans out, keep me posted. 🙂
January 25, 2008 at 8:49 pm |
Hola guapo!
You going back to Michoacan again? Or somewhere’s else? Have fun, and take notes 😉
-Ping
January 25, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
Puebla and then Mexico City. And it’s actually work! Fun work but work. And too short.
January 26, 2008 at 3:13 am |
Hey, any chance you can make cal available on the website for those of us who live elsewhere? Or at least point us to someplace to get it online? I’d love to try nixtamalization at home, but don’t know where to get the lime.
Also, it is immensely frustrating to me that I keep having to explain the precise nature of hominy to people who ought to know (chefs teaching classes on Latin cuisine, the people who run Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, FL, etc.). You are nifty.
January 26, 2008 at 1:49 pm |
Lucky you–Puebla! I’d love to try making my own posole, although since I’ve still got some of your prepared posole and I’m basically lazy….
I buy my cal here: http://www.canningpantry.com/pickling-additives.html
January 26, 2008 at 9:43 pm |
So I have the cal and the La Montosa is it just as simple as what you stated above? Any measuring need to be done as in the proportion of cal to water to corn?
Thanks
January 29, 2008 at 2:32 pm |
Hi Steve. I *love* your blog, thanks for writing.
Any chance you’ll carry masa para tortillas already made? Making it at home seems like a fun occasional production, but not so suited as a regular habit…