Corn One Of Our Native Best

 Corn or maize is as important to American history as any war or treaty. Its contribution was and still is vital for the American table.It  is the best example of Indigenous love of the land and the sense of community shared with the early European settlers.

Pete Wells who usually writes the restaurant review for the Wednesday New York Times Food section penned this thoughtful and informative piece for  today's section. Corn has been part of the North American diet for nine thousand years.It started in the Balsas River Valley south of Mexico City. It began as teosinte a kernal with a hard, inedible cover. Thanks to genetic mutations the kernels became softer and corn as we know it now was born. The plants traveled around the Western Hemisphere, even winding up in the Caribbean.The Hopi Indians of Arizona planted it a foot below the surface of high winter valleys in order to catch the meltwater , originally snow , that seeps into the ground. A fast growing grain was grown by the Mi'kmaq of Quebec and Maine.It was the Gaspe strain that ripens after only forty-five days of planting. Gaspe corn is still grown in Vermont with the help of Tony Van Winkle an anthropologist who teaches sustainable food systems in Greensboro North Carolina ans Vermont tribe Nulhegen band of the Coosuk Abenaki nation. 

Yet it is the Wampanoag nation of Massachusetts that has the most important connection to corn. They showed the Plymouth Colony settlers how to plant corn after their wheat crop failed. The Pilgrims were on the brink of starvation when they were introduced to the bright red kernels of a strain called King  Phillip's corn.It is still eaten today , although not as much as another heirloom strain called dent corn. Dent corn is still on our tables in the form of cornbread and muffins along with being crumbled in dressings and stuffings. It's steamed with molasses and eggs to create Indian pudding, a kind of custard first made by the colonists  who first called ground corn Indian meal. Some strains were lost as the Indigenous were either slaughtered or moved to different parts of the country. There is one strains that stayed, thanks to the Davis Farm in Stonington Connecticut.  The family obtained kernels in 1654 from a local tribe  when their chief Uncas gave the kernels to Hartford CT founder Thomas Stanton. A few Indigenous women are planting heirloom seeds as their ancestors have done, hoping to bring back the corn their ancestors ate.

Corn is one of the most vital crop in the history of North America.It sustained the Indigenous for millennia . It also was a life line for the early settlers of Plymouth. It was ans still is the backbone of American cooking.

Making Healthy Appetizing

Anything healthy for you can be daunting - and off putting. Even a healthy, chock full of goodness whole grain bread may not be as appealing as its' white cousin. How to change that? By creating a loaf similar to much loved white sliced bread. Can it be done? yes. Can it be loved? Yes.

Regular contributor Amelia Nierenberg wrote about this problem and its' solution in yesterday's New York Times Food section.It seems that whole grain breads, despite all that they offer are just not as popular as the standard preservative laced ones made by national brands.Even some of brown breads have chemical preservatives or additives plus sugars to make them more appealing. Companies like the famed King Arthur Flour of Norwich Vermont sells a loaf that's whole grained and sliced. It's popular selling 350 loaves a week.Another artisan bread company , The Bread Lab,a research center associated with Washington State University offers a version that is more or less your standard sandwich bread. People love it because it's easy to handle and a way to sneak wholesome ingredients into kids' diets. It's crusty and sliced, exactly what's great for making sandwiches. It's not going to be those bricks of whole wheat whatever that hippies baked back in the Sixties and early seventies according to the director who runs the Bread Lab, Stephen Jones.

How did we wind up being a nation heavily reliant on white bread? It started in the late 19th Century when a new process came over from Europe. The process changed how American flour was milled. It started with roller mills which separate the bran - the "whole" part of the whole wheat from the kernel.Without the bran's oils and proteins the chalky all purpose flour we know today is inert and easy to preserve. Even though it does last longer, white flour is less nutritious as the bran hold's most of the kernel's fiber. Certain chemicals and preservatives are also added to stave off mold and staleness. Luckily the approachable bread movement is changing all that.  Bread eaters and bread lovers can have the best of both worlds. The Bread Lab has set strict parameters for its' loaves. The flour used has to be sixty per cent or more whole wheat. There cannot be any  chemical additives and must contain seven or less ingredients. It also has to cost under six dollars a loaf and not be sold at an exorbitant price as some other artisan bread companies do. Still it can be expensive for families on a budget looking for a loaf as cheap as Wonder Bread which sells for about $1.80 a loaf at some stores.

America is a country that does love natural foods. Yet trying to sell it on the idea of whole grain bread is a hard one.Thanks to the approachable bread movement and the people who make it happen, like Dr Jones , Americans may be switching over to a slice of brown goodness soon.