Among the Lacandon Maya who inhabited the tropical lowland regions of eastern Chiapas, the caustic powder was obtained by toasting freshwater shells over a fire for several hours.

In the highland areas of Chiapas and throughout much of the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize River valley and Petén Basin, limestone was used to make slaked lime for steeping the shelled kernels.

[4] To make hominy, field corn (maize) grain is dried, and then it is treated by soaking and cooking the mature (hard) grain in a dilute solution of lye (potassium hydroxide) (which can be produced from water and wood ash) or slaked lime (calcium hydroxide from limestone).

Alkalinity helps dissolve hemicellulose, the major adhesive component of the maize cell walls, loosens the hulls from the kernels, and softens the corn.

Finally, in addition to providing a source of dietary calcium, the lye or lime reacts with the corn so that the nutrient niacin can be assimilated by the digestive tract.

In Mexican cuisine, people cook masa nixtamalera with water to make a thick, gruel-like beverage called atole.

Hominy can be ground coarsely for grits, or into a fine mash dough (masa) used extensively in Latin American cuisine.

[11] Rockihominy, a popular trail food in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is dried corn, roasted to a golden brown, then ground to a very coarse meal, almost like hominy grits.