Hominy comes from a Powhatan word for processed corn — and the alkali treatment it describes literally prevents a vitamin deficiency that plagued societies who ate corn without it.
Dried maize kernels that have been treated with an alkali solution to remove the hull and germ, used in cooking particularly in the southern United States.
From Virginia Algonquian uskatahomen or a related Powhatan term meaning parched corn or corn prepared by removal of the hull. The exact source word is debated, but it clearly derives from an Algonquian language of the Chesapeake Bay region. Key roots: uskatahomen (Virginia Algonquian: "corn prepared by parching or alkali treatment").
Hominy is the result of nixtamalization — treating corn with an alkaline solution — a process independently discovered by Mesoamerican peoples thousands of years ago. This process is not merely culinary but biochemically essential: untreated corn is deficient in bioavailable niacin (vitamin B3), and populations that adopted corn without also adopting nixtamalization often suffered from pellagra, a devastating deficiency disease. European colonists who learned to eat corn from Native Americans also learned this processing technique, which is why the American South, unlike corn-eating regions