Some of the Indians had maize
(US: corn), but I don't know how far North this extended

In the eastern woodlands and prairies, it extended at least to southern New
England and the Ohio Valley. In the western desert, not much beyond Arizona
and New Mexico. It was unknown on the West Coast.

So does someone have any experience with grinding down oak acorns
and making a dough like paste?

Remove the shells with a nutcracker. Break up the acorns into small chunks
with a mallet, then run the chunks through a grain grinder (or you could do it
the labor-intensive way, with mortar and pestle). Once you have flor/meal,
then you make the paste -- try the same ingredients you would use to turn wheat
flour into dough.

I find that once acorns have been leached, they have a nut-like texture
(predictably, since they are nuts); I wonder if one could make acorn butter
(like peanut butter or hazelnut butter)?

Jie-san Laushi

Huodau lau, xuedau lau, hai you sanfen xue bulai
_____________________________________________
to email: eliminate redundancy

Some of the Indians had maize
(US: corn), but I don't know how far North this extended

Jie-san Laushi schreef
In the eastern woodlands and prairies, it extended at least to southern
New England and the Ohio Valley. In the western desert, not much beyond
Arizona and New Mexico. It was unknown on the West Coast.

+ + +
Of course there was (and is) also wild rice (Zizania, not to be confused
with rice, Oryza), at least in Eastern North America
PvR

In article ,
Jie-san Laushi wrote:
Some of the Indians had maize
(US: corn), but I don't know how far North this extended

In the eastern woodlands and prairies, it extended at least to southern New
England and the Ohio Valley. In the western desert, not much beyond Arizona
and New Mexico. It was unknown on the West Coast.

Maize was grown as far north as the Gaspe Peninsula, where the native
people developed Gaspe Flint, an amazing cultivar that goes seed to
seed in ten weeks. It's used as an experimental subject in maize
research because it not only has a short generation time, but it has
a short stature and can be grown indoors. It's an impressive
accomplishment of indigenous agriculture to adapt a plant native to
hot dry climates to a cold short season maritime one.

The Mandan people of what is now North Dakota also raised maize. Before
the introduction of the horse made a nomadic buffalo hunting lifestyle
feasible, a lot of people practiced maize/bean/squash agriculture in
the river valleys of the prairies. Once the 'classic' Plains Indian
culture took off in the late 18th century, however, most of these people
got tired of having their harvests constantly stolen by mounted raiders,
and deserted their sedentary lifestyle for the new horse nomad mode.
These former agriculturists grew only tobacco once they became nomads.

I find that once acorns have been leached, they have a nut-like texture
(predictably, since they are nuts); I wonder if one could make acorn butter
(like peanut butter or hazelnut butter)?

I don't think they are high enough in fat to make a nut butter, but you
might try adapting recipes for chestnuts, another starchy nut. The French
use chestnuts a lot, including in the form of flour.

It's an impressive
accomplishment of indigenous agriculture to adapt a plant native to
hot dry climates to a cold short season maritime one.


Does GRIN have this one? We could sure use it in the Maritime Northwest. (I
know, a flint corn is not like a sweet corn, but it's a start!)

Jie-san Laushi

Huodau lau, xuedau lau, hai you sanfen xue bulai
_____________________________________________
to email: eliminate redundancy

In article ,
Jie-san Laushi wrote:
It's an impressive
accomplishment of indigenous agriculture to adapt a plant native to
hot dry climates to a cold short season maritime one.

Does GRIN have this one? We could sure use it in the Maritime Northwest. (I
know, a flint corn is not like a sweet corn, but it's a start!)

I got my initial seeds from teh USDA Maize Germplasm Repository before it
closed. THey sent me a dozen or so seeds from three inbred lines and I
interplanted them to get as much diversity as I was going to get. I've
distributed seed through Seeds of Diversity (Heritage Seed Program), a
Canadian organization similar to the Seed Savers Exchange in the US.
People up here who live well out of the grain corn areas have had good
results - places like the Saguenay Valley in Quebec during a very cold
rainy season and one guy north of Edmonton, Alberta got a good crop
despite a short growing season. It's not productive as a modern hybrid,
but these people live in areas where most maize can't mature seed.

If you are looking for a short season or cool climate sweet corn, there's
been a lot of work done in Canada and the northern US. Stokes Seeds used
to do a lot of sweet corn breeding, and there are several small seed
companies up here that specialize in short season cultivars. Two that
specialize in the Maritime NW are Salt Spring Seeds (BC) and Territorial
Seeds (BC and WA). There's also Johnny's Selected Seeds and Pinetree
Seeds in Maine. One company I really like is Prairie Garden Seeds
in northern Saskatchewan (www.prseeds.ca). Among many other unusual and
short season cultivars, he has Simonet sweet corn, which was developed
in northern Alberta.