See: Thomas Kineally Three Famines: Starvation and Politics - ch14. (go up one page from the link)

"They saw there would be a need for further government intervention above the Indian maize Peel had brought...By January 1846 the first of the Indian corn from North America, the same that in the southern United States produced the food called hominy, began to reach the Irish ports...Unlike the corn grown in Ireland, the Indian corn was so hard to crack that it should rightly have been chopped in steel mills, but there were no such mills in Ireland. It was very difficult to cook and, if not properly done, could cause bowel disorders... <section on pamphlet on preparation - days of work!>...This difficulty of its preparation and the inappropriateness of the food to the necessity derived from a belief that would be evident in the Bengal famine as well: relief food must be made troublesome and unsavoury to ensure that people did not lightly have recourse to it. It was tested with the inmates of some of the workhouses, who refused to touch it...The maize was sold to the Irish at cost price at first, and later for a little more than that...The Irish had various names for the corn - min deirce, beggar's meal, Indian buck, or, as previously described, 'Peel's brimstone'.

Mick