Abstract:

I learned a lot about cooking from my Grandma. She had some truly outstanding recipes, but there were also a few that I never quite understood. Her take on posole, that spicy Mexican/Native American soup rich with pork, chile and hominy corn, was always lacking; so when I got my mitts on her source recipe, I made it a point to break it down to understand what had been amiss with Grandma's cooking. Was this a recipe that was too fussy for a home cook to do it right? Heck no! Turns out, once you take posole to the Crock Pot, it gets impossibly easy; and its simplicity absolutely belies the complexity of slow-simmered flavor. Grandma was always keen to do posole her way, but I'd like to think that after a few well-placed swear words with respect to my irreverence, that she'd have ultimately approved of my take on this Southwest-style soup.

Purpose:

In retrospect, I'd have to say it was like something out of a Truman Capote story: Every January for as long as I could remember, my Grandma would get it in her head that it'd be the right kind of weather for making posole. Ever had posole? Also (and maybe properly) spelled "pozole," this spicy soup rich with pork, chiles and "nixtimalized" corn (aka hominy) has its roots in Mexico way back before the likes of Christopher Columbus got lost in the West Indies. I'm of the opinion that it was that little bit of Native American blood my Grandma had that made her fancy this recipe, but for all her seasonal obsession with the dish, I could never shake the nagging thought that my grandmother's interpretation of the dish may have been a bit too loose. I was fortunate enough to get my mitts on Grandma's recipe boxes after she passed, and that posole recipe was one of the first things I looked for. The recipe Grandma used came from a clipping out of the Hutchinson News, that was printed sometime around the Christmas Holiday back in 1984. The recipe as wrote made way too much for our small household, and when I started to do the measurements, I realized that my pound and a quarter's worth of ham hock would be plenty of protein. What's more, the now smaller proportions would be a perfect fit for a standard 5-6 quart slow cooker.