Corn nuts

Corn nuts, also known as toasted corn, are a snack food made of roasted or deep-fried corn kernels. It is referred to as cancha in Peru, chulpi in Ecuador, and cornick in the Philippines. Corn nuts are prepared by soaking whole corn kernels in water for three days, then deep-frying them in oil until they are hard and brittle. The kernels are soaked because they shrink during the harvesting and cleaning process, and rehydration returns them to their original size. In 1936 , Olin Huntington, an entrepreneur from the Bay area produced them as a cheap snack to be handed out free at bars — although this fell apart when California introduced a law that forbade watering holes from handing out free food. This is what led another man, Albert Holloway, to snap up the company and pivot towards selling the corn snack in stores. He ended up trademarking the name Corn Nuts (sometimes written as "CornNuts") in the '40s, and he and his family held onto the company until 1997 when it was sold to Nabisco.

Source: Wikipedia