Ode to Quinoa

-

-

quinoa seeds

If you came from One Stop Poetry for the One Shot Wednesday poem, it's at the end. (Of course you're welcome to read the preamble, I hope you will, since it builds to the ode.) 

I really don't understand how one civilization knows something important for 6,000 years, and I just heard about it a few months ago. Now, if I'm browsing online for recipes (while my beautiful cookbooks lie, unopened in the cupboard), especially healthy ones, it's hard to miss it.

These are quinoa seeds. Quinoa isn't a grain, it's not in the grass family. It's a leafy vegetable, related to spinach, kale and beets, of the Chenopodium species. Quinoa was the second most important food source for the Incans, after the potato, but more important than maize. It's Inca's gold, sacred, the mother grain. They could grow it in the Andes at 13,000 feet (but not maize).

This excellent 1999 article on the history and exciting prospects of quinoa becoming a sustainable major source of food for the world, explains:

By the beginning of this century, quinoa had lost its status as the Mother Grain. Foreign crops, such as barley, had been introduced and surpassed quinoa in importance. Further decline occurred in Peru in the 1940s when the government began to import large amounts of wheat. Between 1941 and 1974, quinoa cultivation plummeted from 111,000 acres to 32,000 acres. Compounded with the growing acculturation of indigenous populations and the stigma of indigenous identification attached to its consumption, quinoa lost its grandeur and became just another subsistence crop for poorer rural families.

Thankfully, with the exploding demand for quinoa from people like me way up here in Michigan, exports from countries like Bolivia are increasing, and quinoa is also being eaten by the masses in the Andes again.

You can see Thomas Jefferson's handsome profile there on the nickel, appropriately resting his head on pillows of quinoa seeds. Among the many geniuses of Thomas Jefferson, one was a passion for experimenting with fruits and vegetables, hundreds of varieties in his 1,000-foot garden at Monticello. He ate mostly vegetables and considered meat a "condiment." (Read here about his favorite vegetables.) I don't know if he knew of, tasted, or experimented with quinoa, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. An interesting bit of history is how Jefferson smuggled rice from Italy in his pockets, risking punishment by death, to develop a new breed mixed with Carolina rice, so that the French would import it, which you can read here.

I visited Monticello at age 13 with my parents and Virginian aunt and uncles;

the top sketch is Jefferson's first of the house he designed;
his inventions, architecture and design sense really captured
my aesthetic imagination. 

 Mulberry Row, Vegetable Garden Terrace, & South Orchard
(Photos borrowed from monticello.org)

I was intimidated by what I didn't know about quinoa, not the least of which was pronouncing it (KEEN-WAH). At last, after my niece potlucked a quinoa dish at the family reunion, we cooked some for a perfect summer Sunday meal. Here is the simplest method for cooking quinoa that I've found. Be sure to rinse it before cooking, although apparently most quinoa at the market now has been rinsed already to remove the bitter outer coating called saponin.

Do you want to know why you might want to eat it? It's delicious - mild and nutty, and the texture is nice, like rice. It's super easy to cook in 15 minutes (don't overcook it). You can even pop it like popcorn apparently. It's high in protein (a half cup serving has 11 grams!) and contains all the amino acids to make it a complete protein to boot. It's gluten-free. It has fighto-chemicals that phyt against cancer and prevent cholestrol from clogging your arteries. It's loaded with potassium, magnesium and manganese. I mean seriously, was this secret buried in stone at Macchu Picchu? Sometimes I really think we "civilized" peoples have unlearned almost every useful bit of wisdom readily available to mankind.

Perfect Summer Sunday Lunch

Black Bean & Tomato Quinoa

Pesto & Crostini

Fried Green Tomatoes

Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa

(we added crushed garlic, cucumbers, chopped spinach,
zucchini, and green peppers to this recipe)

I love the little curlies.

Pesto and Crostini

I use the pesto recipe from The Silver Spoon.

(I do pull The Silver Spoon down off the shelf, often.)

Blend in a food processor:

25 fresh basil leaves

scant 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup pine nuts

1 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

1/3 cup romano cheese, freshly grated

salt

& I add 1-2 cloves crushed garlic

Fried Green Tomatoes

(Don's specialty)

The garlic and basil flavor-bursting pesto

with the milder quinoa and fried green tomatoes

made a nice balancing act.

Accompany with iced tea, lemonade or Pinot Grigio.

Bon appetit!

It was Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's birthday Monday, July 12 (1904, d. September 23, 1973). He was famous for his odes to simple ordinary things, like an artichoke, socks, maize, a lemon. Neruda's sensuality and mindfulness of the universe in every small thing is inimitable, but the inspiration he keeps shining from Chile is a prompt for this Ode to Quinoa anyway. I think quinoa is a good candidate for a Nerudian ode, since it was spurned by Spanish conquistadors as merely food for Indians.

Ode to Quinoa

My fingertips
roll the beads,
miracles of asymmetry,
tiny as toad eyes,
hard as coriander,
the color of my skin.

A bed of it
would be like thick
sand, my knees
and elbows,
hips, my toes
would not be able
to find the bottom.
Happy
airy mattress.

An ocean
or a cup,
softened in a pan,
a spoonful
of autumn sun,
a pillow of
downy earth.
Useless teeth,
a tongue, a mouth,
the wet pads
of my cheeks
massage it into life,
down through the funnel
of my craving,
and into the well
of my stomach’s
open empty hand.


~ Ruth M.

Listen to a podcast of this poem here.

My ode is part of One Stop Poetry's One Shot Wednesday poetry gathering, where all poets are welcome to share, and readers will find delights. Leslie (Moondustwriter) is this week's host.

-

-