Comments on: Nosferatus Need Nixtamal

By: Week17: “The First Rule of Archery Club Is…” | Urban Scout: Rewilding Cascadia

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:47:06 +0000

[...] a local park. We wanted a fruit or nut tree because supposedly the ash tastes better for making Nixtamal… a project that has presented us with several problems (which you will all hear about as soon [...]

By: unetxqk socbpkrtf

unetxqk socbpkrtf — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:48:49 +0000

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By: Urban Scout » Blog Archive » Week19: Risky Rewilding

Urban Scout » Blog Archive » Week19: Risky Rewilding — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 05:47:46 +0000

[...] Aside from hide scraping and archery I worked a lot on my nixtamal project to no avail. Expect a loooong blog on the Nixtamalization process when I finally figure it out. Actually, I did finally produce a single taco, though it took way too much effort. I know a simpler way exists, I just don’t know where to find it! I felt like I had to share my first, so I tore it in half and ate it with Penny. Don’t worry, I shaved my face after I took this photo. [...]

By: vicky b

vicky b — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 17:25:07 +0000

I saw a TV show about how to make corn tortillas a few months ago! Here’s the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_33542,00.html

Apparently “cal” or slaked lime is available at Latin American groceries or online, but the traditional method is the one described above by Penny Scout.

By: PennyScout

PennyScout — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:45:58 +0000

I tried to put in links. Can I do that? It didn’t work.
They were:
1)soap making instructions: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/paul_norman_3/soapmake.htm

2)picture of corn pounder: http://srv06.nysed.gov/morgan/images_finished/all_images/full/r10.jpg

3)heirloom corn products:
http://www.heritagefoodsusa.com/what_we_sell/fruits_grains.html

By: PennyScout

PennyScout — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:36:42 +0000

Hey- I've been reading all about corn too for a paper on Iroquois ethnobotany. They had about 50 ways to eat corn. Limewater is made with hardwood ashes. Sift out the charcoal and soak the fine grey ash in water, then strain or let settle and pour off. I do not know if soaking in hot water or even boiling is better/faster. I also do not know how long it should be soaked or how much ash is needed. When tasted the water should have a "bite". I don't think it is very dangerous to handle because it is not very strong, not like concentrated Red Devil Lye you can buy at the grocery store. I've touched ash lye water when tanning hides and it made my hands feel funny but it didn't do much. You can also use this water to make soap, so you may want to follow these instuctions for making the lye and maybe make some soap after doing the corn thing with the same water:Instructions for soap making from ash. My book says corn was boiled for only 15-30 minutes in the lye solution to loosen to husks. Then it was put in a basket and sloshed up and down in fresh water to rinse off the lye and separate the husks. I do not think they necessarily waited for it to dry before pounding. It probably wasn't that wet because it takes way longer than 15 minutes for flint corn to get soft, more like 3 hours. Plus maybe it dried further from the pounding action. They ran it through sifters to get a fine meal. Flour I'm not sure about, maybe that is where stones come in. Over here the indians used big wood burned mortars and heavy wooden pestles to grind the corn: Picture of corn mortar. But I believe I read once that the process of grinding the corn with rocks was nutritionally important in mexico. It added minerals. The Iroquois didn't really make fine flour or torillas that I have read, just meal. As far as corn species I'm sure there are differences, but what they are I don't know. I don't really know what this blue corn is you are talking about or why you are allowed to eat it for your diet?? I should think any "alternative" corn would be okay, just as long as it isn't sweet corn. The Iroquois grew so many varieties: sweet corn, not so sweet corn, corn to be eaten on the cob and the hard corn dried and used to make hominy, blue, red, green, white, yellow, back, purple, and pink corn, long ears and short ears, early ripening and late ripening, pop corn... -I'm going to try to order corn to make traditional corn soup from a guy whose website is down right now. It's called prophecyandsurvival.com! It's an Iroquois heirloom seed project a few hours from me. You can see his same products here: Corn Flour, Hominy. But I'm going to try and order direct. I believe this hominy corn has been limed already. Though if you can find any that hasn't I'd be interested in trying the liming process as well. -As far as your addiction to corn chips, do you still like them without salt? Do you like all chips or is corn your favorite? I made some flax seed chips that I thought were pretty good with guacamole once. But hey, what isn't good with guacamole? Hmm other alternative chips...you could experiment with deep frying different wild roots. I can see that being really good. But hey what isn't good deep fried? You could try making baked chips of flours, nuts, seeds and spices. Acornthins anyone? -Are you a vampire? Totally. They forgot to mention the 5th D: Dandruff.