USDA Blog: Helping Mississippi Choctaws keep hominy alive

Wednesday, January 30, 2013  

"For special meals like those on birthdays and Christmas, members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians include hominy on the menu—but hominy, essentially dried corn kernels, is expensive to purchase.

That’s why USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is working to help the tribe grow and harvest hickory king corn and other heirloom white varieties and process them to make hominy.

Hominy is a traditional food for Native Americans during the winter. To help restore this tradition, NRCS provided the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, comprised of about 10,000 members across the region, with conservational technical assistance, helping them transform idle land into a hominy-making enterprise.

Besides enabling the tribe to provide their own locally grown, fresh produce, growing the corn has trimmed expenses for them. It costs about $25 to purchase the corn used to make one gallon of hominy. If grown and made on site, the hominy costs about $16 per gallon."

Get the Story:
NRCS Helps Choctaw Tribe Keep Hominy Tradition Alive & Profitable (USDA Blog 1/29)