Ancient superfood--Native corn and a friend

[panader0]

Last edited Sun Sep 7, 2014, 10:42 PM - Edit history (1)

This guy, Jon Wick is a good buddy. He plays flute and sax with us pickers.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/7/heirloom-grains-revival
by Tim Gaynor - @timejgaynor




CABULLONA, Mexico - The towering ancient corn, which grows to twice the height of a man, was cultivated for thousands of years by Uto-Aztecan tribes, but had all but disappeared. Now, horticulturalist Jonathan Wick stoops over green shoots of the maize sprouting in a field near this Mexican village just south of the Arizona border.

“It was originally grown by the Aztecs, and it was their superfood,” Wick said of the Chapalote corn. “It was the food that they would roast and mill, make into a drink with water — pinole — the drink that they needed to keep them going all day long. It’s very nutritious.”

Wick is working to revive the ancient, once near-extinct, flinty, chocolate-colored corn first sown 4,200 years ago in a region extending from what is now northwest Mexico to Arizona.

Following in the tracks of a natural food revival that has popularized heirloom tomatoes, beans and squash at farmers markets across the United States, the arid Southwest borderlands is now at the forefront of a concerted push to bring back natural, genetically diverse and nourishing grains cultivated by local farmers, some over thousands of years.



Horticulturalist Jonathan Wick inspects corn in a field near Cabullona, Mexico. Heirloom grains, ranging from ancient maize grown by Uto-Aztecan tribes to heritage White Sonora wheat first grown by Jesuit missionaries in the late 1600s, are making a comeback in the Southwest U.S. Tim Gaynor


Together with horticulturalist Victor Acedo and Mexican farmer Carlos Preciado, Wick hopes to parlay nearly five pounds of the precious Chapalote seeds into as much as 1,000 pounds of stock to supply local gardeners, farmers and enthusiasts in the Greater Southwest to grow next year for use in everything from polenta and cornbread to pinole and tortillas.

The trio are among a blossoming community of conservationists, gardeners, farmers, millers, bakers and consumers reviving neglected heirloom grains in a region that was once the crucible for the propagation of some of the most ancient corn varieties in existence as well as the oldest heirloom wheat in North America, brought over by settlers from Europe centuries ago.
borderlands.html

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/7/heirloom-grains-revivalborderlands.html---a better link --Thanks

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. And the organic farmer shall inherit the earth.

[Cha]

4. I surely hope so, DcmS. :)

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Here is the working link

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/7/heirloom-grains-revivalborderlands.html

[panader0]

3. Thanks

I'm not so hot on the computer.

[zeemike]

5. It is stories like that that give us hope.

Some people are actually looking out for natural foods.

[Tumbulu]

6. And DU'ers the seed for that Sonora wheat was increased on my farm!

and this wonderful heirloom grain enthusiast and owner of Anson Mills bought tons of seed from me and donated it to this project among others. So, I feel proud to be a part of this. A very brave microbiologist got the 25 seeds from the seed bank and increased them initially on a small organic farm nearer to her home. But then she increased it to acres on my farm. I tasted it, went berserk and have been growing it since 2001. Then Anson Mills got involved by buying up most of what I grow and got the seeds back into the hands of various First American groups in the southwest and southeast.

[BrotherIvan]

9. Really?

That's awesome! Please, tell us more, including what it tastes like. When the article started mentioning all the things that could be made from it, I was very interested. Have you tried cooking with it? Is it hard to grow?

You and NRaleighLiberal are gardening superheroes!

[Tumbulu]

14. Oh thanks, it has a marvelous flavor, almost corn like

I have a small electric stone mill from Austria and I grind it as fine as is possible. It makes wonderful pie doughs, shortbread cookies, muffins, cakes, all sorts of non bread type things. It is low in gluten and high in flavor.

Apparently it was the first wheat used to make tortillas.

I farm 130 acres organically ( been working on going biodynamic for 16 years now and almost there) but I am not the talented gardener that NRaleighLiberal is.

Thanks for the enthusiasm, been away for a few days.

[BrotherIvan]

18. I've had my eye on German grain mills for a while now

We avoid grains for the most part so I can't justify the expense, but I pine for one often. I use my Vitamix to grind whole grain Einkorn wheat which is a traditional diploid wheat and it is fantastic. I will check this corn out for if I can find it. Thanks so much!

[Tumbulu]

19. I first bought a $150 stone mill on e-bay

that did a fabulous job- but MY GOODNESS IT WAS DEAFENING!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to wear earplugs to turn it on, and run out of the room and close the door. After a few years of this, I broke down and bought the beautiful Austrian one. I still have to wear earplugs, but I can stay right by it and it is very beautiful.

Monica Spiller always said that those metal mills are fine to use if you are going to use the flour within 30 minutes. Just not good for grinding a hunch up at a time. She told me that the flour from the stone mills is good for 3 months at room temperature.

I do think that the pre modern grains are safe to eat for most people. But what do I know? I never liked wheat, only grew spelt until I tasted this Sonora wheat. Then I made it my mission to get other people to try it as it tastes so much better than regular wheat. Plus it really sequesters the carbon- it has the root system of a perennial, which is not common for an annual.

Anyway, it is fun sharing all this with you. Thanks.

[BrotherIvan]

20. I did not know that about the stone mills

But it makes quite a bit of sense. I was reading about an isolated group of Swiss and their great health including wheat (which is quite the opposite of most cultures who embrace grains fully) and it was attributed to the community stone mill that people took turns grinding for the whole community.

We'll be in Europe this year and I was definitely going to check prices on one of those. In fact, we are planning on moving to Spain, so there will be a whole world of new things. I already put a paella pan and a tortilla stand on my list, but packing those things may cause pause at the security checkpoints. My mother did the Julia Child thing and bought a bunch of copper on her first trip to France when it was dirt cheap. I plan to try to emulate getting the best a country has to offer. It may go into storage for a while, but I'll be so happy to use it.

Thanks so much and hope to learn more from you in the future!

[KurtNYC]

13. will it grow in Zone 5?

We are playing with buckwheats, quinoa, and other grains here. Would love to try the super corn.

[Tumbulu]

15. Not sure, it is worth a try

Main thing it does not like is summer rains. Do you get them where you are? It is originally from the Mediterranean.

[Enthusiast]

7. Kicked and recommended!

Thank you, panader0.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. I'd love to try it.

I've never liked corn, at least the common varieties grown in the U.S. I'll eat it cooked into something, such as cornbread, tortillas, or maybe a little added to a soup, but I won't eat corn on the cob or creamed corn. I've always said that corn is only fit for hogs to eat. This variety sounds interesting and nutritious and I'd like to give it a shot.

The same goes for the wheat variety spoken of in the article. I eat a lot of wheat bread and I'd really like to try bread made with that variety of wheat. Thank God we have people who are reviving these old varieties of vegetables and grains! It would be a crying shame if they all went extinct and we only had the same old boring strains of those crops. It's dangerous to depend on such a small number of varieties of any crop, because some blight could come along and wipe out all of them. I believe that diversity is not only desirable but essential in life.

[Warpy]

10. There are dizzying varieties of New World foods like corn, potatoes, chiles, and squashes

Around here we get blue corn, originally grown by the Zuni people who kept it going, it's now being grown commercially. The flavor is deeper and the color disconcerting. I love to use it to flavor and thicken stews. There are other varieties as well, usually tacked to a front door in fall all over the country, but at least as nutritious as the flint corn agribusiness grows to feed to pigs.

Indigenous people everywhere in this hemisphere are keeping their seed and growing at least sample crops every year.

Heirloom crops are not automatically better than hybrids. Most are less nutritious and produce less actual food. However, they are very, very different and well worth a place on the table.

[yodermon]

11. Monsanto will find a way to crush them, bank on it n/t

[closeupready]

12. There is an interesting chapter on corn in "Much Depends on Dinner."

Fascinating history about this form of grass.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=amazon+much+depends+on+dinner+margaret+visser

[Lex]

16. Glad to see heirloom varieties making a come back.

Glad that people are taking the time to go back and cultivate the heirloom tomatoes, corn, wheat, etc.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, panader.