Corny - Ten Different Ways by Debi Pearl
Friday, June 8, 2007
I was reading in the NGJ (No Greater Joy) magazine the other day and thought I'd share an article about corn with you. This is a very long article. This is the article:
Corny - Ten Different Ways by Debi Pearl
"When we moved to Cane Creek 19 years ago, we went from the 'haves' to the 'haves not'. We hadn't been exactly affluent, but we pretty much had what we wanted when we needed it. moving here changed that. We sold our four acre 'estate' outside of Memphis, TN, and bought 77 acre of rough woodland with eight tillable acres. After paying for the land, we had $7,000 left with which to build a house and barn and to live on for a year while we were building. To get lumber for our house, Mike and two boys cut down trees, dragged them to the house with a mule, and then sawed the logs into lumber at a sawmill he had previously built for that purpose.
"They had the easy job. I had to learn how to feed the family on $10 each week. Fortunately, I had spent the summer canning and had 300 quarts of fruits and vegetables to add to our larder. But when you divide 300 quarts by fiver fast-growing kids and two hungry parents, it won't go very far. By the first of November, I knew we were in for a lean winter. When a man came by and offered to sell 100 pounds of cabbage for ten cents a pound, I decided it was a wise use of $10. He told me that if I placed the cabbage under our 12x16ft cabin and covered it with hay, it would keep all winter. Another lady sold me 100 pounds of sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes, which we also kept under our cabin covered with hay. Still, you divide 200 pounds of food by eight mouths and multiply it by three months, and you don't have many days to eat.
"I guess the old man down the road thought that maybe the dumb city-folks needed a helping hand. He brought over a small sack of rough corn meal, brownish in color. He explained to me that this was just field corn, the kind you feed to animals. Any dried corn will do. You can buy it straight from a farmer or from your local farmers' co-op. It is cheaper than potting soil. Some people burn it in their stoves fro heat. It's cheaper than coal or firewood. This past year we paid a farmer less than $3.00 per bushel for a truck-load of corn. A bushel will fill up two five-gallon buckets. A pick-up truck full would only cost $50.
"It is easy to store. Some farmers just dump it in an open bin in the barn. You can put it in barrels, buckets or boxes. It must be kept dry, and in warm weather it must be sealed or treated with diatomaceous earth, or bugs will eat it. There are several easy and safe ways to kill bugs before sealing it in buckets. You could get that info from a library, but we plan to eat it before next summer. A bug or two never hurt anyone. Our kids were raised on them - complaining, mind you. The old man told me to lightly roast the dried corn in the oven (Indians put the whole cob in warm ashes until it roasted to a golden brown) and then grind it in coarsely in my cheap little flea market grinder.
"For breakfast every morning, we stirred the gr4ound corn into boiling water to make a delicious hot cereal - just like he told us to do. He called it 'corn mush'. He told us that a bushel or two would breakfast for our family throughout the winter. The first time we tried it, we added a little cream that had been given to us by a neighbor. It was delicious. As the leftover corn mush cools, it soon firms up into a wiggly cake. It can be sliced and later pan-fired to make a delicious evening snack, pour some honey, maple syrup or sorghum over it too. The snack would never make it to McDonald's as a famous special, but we aspiring hillbillies, not having anything else, found it delightfully satisfying.
"A few days later, I told another neighbor how much we enjoyed the corn mush. Amused at my ignorance, and seeing my eagerness to try new things, she gave me careful instructions on how to make hominy and corn tortillas. Years before I had watched the Maya Indians in the jungles of Central America make tortillas this way, and now I was to try it for myself. I put about four cup of the same dried corn (not ground) into a large pan of water. Then I took the hardwood ashes right out of my wood stove and sifted about one cup into the corn and water. Hardwood ashes contain lye and will make the outside hull of the corn soften and dissolve. Ashes can also be used for making soap, cleaning bug-infested areas, treating certain skin fungi; and they are great for keeping bugs off your corn when you store it in the barn or in any open container. I cooked the corn with the ashes for 30 min. and then checked it. After several 30 min. sessions, or after sitting all night on the warm edge of our wood-burning stove, the outside of corn was swollen to twice its size.
"I then washed the corn to remove the ashes. If you have finely sifted ashes, it is easy to rinse them out of the corn; otherwise it takes a while. A little is not going tio hurt you, and it doesn't taste bad. If you want hominy, then put the clean corn back on to cook until it swells up to seven times its size. It should take about an hour, and they will become white and tender.
"If you want corn tortillas instead of hominy, then instead of cooking it a second time as you did for hominy, get out your old flea market hand-grinder and grind the soft, washed corn. Add a little water to the mush dough that comes through the grinder, and make 1in. balls of dough. The Maya Indians in Central America always had a bucket of lye water with corn soaking in preparation for a meal. They just took a little out and dropped some more in. They carefully scooped the top floating corn with a large stick so there was little washing. They didn't have a grinder, so they pounded the soft corn with a large stick to bring it to a dough consistency. The dough can be patted out and cooked in a dry pan (no oil, just sprinkle dry corn meal to keep from sticking). The Indians cooked over an open fire on the lid of an old 55gal. drum.
"Now my horse-feed corn was making our breakfast and lunch, but we aren't through yet! Being from the south, I was raised on cornbread. Every I would grind the dried corn into cornmeal and mix salt, baking powder, and sour milk (if we were really rich, I'd add an egg) and pour into a hot oiled, iron skillet to bake for dinner. Often, the next day the leftover cornbread was crumbled into a bowl of water, onions, sage, salt, pepper, celery seeds, chopped cabbage, and anything else I thought would taste ok. With a little seasoning, corn was feeding us well. So, there we sat eating hominy, cornbread, dressing, corn tortillas, dumplings, hot tamales and corn mush patties. With an addition of sweet potatoes and cabbage and a pot of wild game, we were eating fine - like kings, we thought! Before the winter was over, I was stuffing some kind of corn concoction into everything from squirrel to cabbage.
"The first long winter finally ended. We planted the leftover corn that spring. I had well-learned that in time of famine, the humble corn seed can feed a family well. I also learned that being poor can make you or break you. Sometimes a family's greatest handicap is having too much and having it too easy. We learned how to be resourceful because we had to. Success in business may not translate into success in the family. Creativity, work ethic, confidence, and emotional balance often come out of the struggle. Even in the middle of washing our clothes outdoors in a large pot over a fire, while trying to figure out what I could feed the family next, I felt happy, happier than I could ever remember. When Nanny and Daddy Bill came to visit and brought peanut butter, I was thrilled. We learned how to be thankful, because doing without made little seem so good.
"We learned how to work together, because we needed each other to survive. We didn't have to tell our children they were needed. We didn't have to pat them on the back when they did their chores, or give them 'positive affirmation' by reminding them how important they were; they were living their worth. They knew what they did mattered. They learned to be survivors. Don't regret your struggles; rejoice in the opportunity to grow. Don't fear tomorrow; make a plan to overcome. When the lean times come, remember: you can always eat corn."
Please Note: All documents are copywrited with NGJ
Next time I post, I'll post about some rabbit research I'll be getting, hopefully!
Rachel
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