The way I understand it the corn kernels were dried then shucked and toasted. Following that they were ground up into some kind of meal. How fine is the grind? Is it like masa harina or more like corn meal polenta? Is the order of the process critical or could a fellow just toast some already ground yellow corn meal or masa that can be bought in the store?
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parched corn question
- Thread starter gearheart
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As far as I know your description of the process is correct and the way it was done in the day. I've never done it, could never figure how to grind it fine enough for my use. So I cheat. I have access to cornmeal ground on original style stones by water power, essentially as it would have been done in colonial days. I have used that to make my version of historic corn pone, and you can see how rough it is.
Original parched corn or rockahominy had to be ground. and the most common way for people on the frontier to grind corn was with the hominy block, or maybe a small quern stone. I expect the end product of either was even a rougher grind than mine. I decided to reverse the process, use the stone-ground cornmeal and parch it last. I simply put some of the meal in a dry skillet over low heat and toasted it until it was as brown as I thought right.
It works like a charm. I use it mostly to thicken my boiled dishes on a trek, but have also made it into a version of what we now call mush, they called hasty pudding. Stewed for 10-15 minutes in 5 times its volume of water, it comes out soft, thickened and tasting of that same nutty toasted corn we like so.
The hasty pudding can be eaten with just a little salt, and is quite good, but I also eat it with a little maple sugar for a treat.
I don't think the usual fine cornmeal available in groceries would be a good imitation of parched corn.
Another historic use for parched corn or rockahominy was as trail food, either plain or with maple sugar added. That's food for young teeth, so I cheat on that, too. There is available a plain white corn tortilla chip, nothing but corn in it. I buy those, toast them golden brown on a cookie sheet, whiz or crush them finely, mix in a little maple or brown sugar and it makes an excellent, delicious, tender, light-weight and compact trail food. Don't offer to share, you won't get any.
Spence
Original parched corn or rockahominy had to be ground. and the most common way for people on the frontier to grind corn was with the hominy block, or maybe a small quern stone. I expect the end product of either was even a rougher grind than mine. I decided to reverse the process, use the stone-ground cornmeal and parch it last. I simply put some of the meal in a dry skillet over low heat and toasted it until it was as brown as I thought right.
It works like a charm. I use it mostly to thicken my boiled dishes on a trek, but have also made it into a version of what we now call mush, they called hasty pudding. Stewed for 10-15 minutes in 5 times its volume of water, it comes out soft, thickened and tasting of that same nutty toasted corn we like so.
The hasty pudding can be eaten with just a little salt, and is quite good, but I also eat it with a little maple sugar for a treat.
I don't think the usual fine cornmeal available in groceries would be a good imitation of parched corn.
Another historic use for parched corn or rockahominy was as trail food, either plain or with maple sugar added. That's food for young teeth, so I cheat on that, too. There is available a plain white corn tortilla chip, nothing but corn in it. I buy those, toast them golden brown on a cookie sheet, whiz or crush them finely, mix in a little maple or brown sugar and it makes an excellent, delicious, tender, light-weight and compact trail food. Don't offer to share, you won't get any.
Spence
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Parched corn is best done with flint corn. Hominy is best done with dent corn. Parched corn is just toasted kernels of corn, toasted to the point they pop like popcorn, only they don't have enough pop to do much more than swell the kernel or, at best, crack it. When it reaches this point it is much easier to crack open and chew with your teeth, much like the last few kernels in the popcorn popper that did not quite open up. Parched corn can be ground, but also people just ate it like eating corn nuts, which are parched hominy as opposed to parch dried raw corn. Parched corn was often used as a trail food or snack when there was no time to cook.
Hominy is corn which is treated with lye or lime to remove the outer husk of the corn. The lye also does something to the corn proteins that make it more nutritious to humans. Hominy in Mexico and the SW US is called Posole, but it is the same thing. Grits are ground hominy (posole), so is Masa that is used for making corn tortillas, tamales, and polenta. As stated above, if you parch hominy, you get corn nuts like you buy in the store. Native Americans both above and below the present border somehow knew about the nutritious advantages of nixtamalization (treating with lime or ashes) and taught it to the European settlers. It caught on, but not with everyone. Sometimes those who did not nixtamalize their corn ended up with severe nutritional disease due to lack of niacin in their diet.
Corn meal in the store has the germ removed, and is even less nutritionally complete than the plain untreated whole kernel corn.
The advantage to parching corn before grinding is the same as parching corn before trying to chew it. It make the grinding much easier, which was really important to people trying to grind their own corn in makeshift metates or mortar and pestals. If you hit parched corn, it doesn't just crack into a few pieces like chickenfeed. The whole kernel usually turns to powder on the first blow.
Hominy is corn which is treated with lye or lime to remove the outer husk of the corn. The lye also does something to the corn proteins that make it more nutritious to humans. Hominy in Mexico and the SW US is called Posole, but it is the same thing. Grits are ground hominy (posole), so is Masa that is used for making corn tortillas, tamales, and polenta. As stated above, if you parch hominy, you get corn nuts like you buy in the store. Native Americans both above and below the present border somehow knew about the nutritious advantages of nixtamalization (treating with lime or ashes) and taught it to the European settlers. It caught on, but not with everyone. Sometimes those who did not nixtamalize their corn ended up with severe nutritional disease due to lack of niacin in their diet.
Corn meal in the store has the germ removed, and is even less nutritionally complete than the plain untreated whole kernel corn.
The advantage to parching corn before grinding is the same as parching corn before trying to chew it. It make the grinding much easier, which was really important to people trying to grind their own corn in makeshift metates or mortar and pestals. If you hit parched corn, it doesn't just crack into a few pieces like chickenfeed. The whole kernel usually turns to powder on the first blow.
The corn can rot if not shucked first.Gerard Dueck said:
Here's a method that works well for me.
First, peel back the husks on the ears of corn and hang them until they are dry. I hang them from the rafters in the garage as it stays nice and warm there.
After the corn is dry, I remove it from the cob, being careful not to damage the whole kernels, and place it on a tray and let it dry a little more. At this point you have "dried corn".
You can stop now and save the corn until you are on a trip and parch it then or parch the corn ahead of time at home.
To "parch" the corn, put a little oil (optional and very little) in a large skillet and cover the bottom with a single layer of corn and roast until the kernels swell up and take on a slight brown, toasted color. Shake them around so it doesn't burn on one side.
That's it! You now have parched corn. You can eat it as is or throw it in soup or powder it to thicken soup or stew.
Horace Kephart is the author of Camping and Woodcraft volumes 1 and 2. In it he writes a good deal about parched corn, and references primary sources.
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Pinole.- All of our early chroniclers praised this parched meal as the most nourishing food known. In New England it went by the name of “nocake,” a corruption of the Indian word nookik. William Wood, who, in 1634, wrote the first topographical account of the Massachusettes colony, says of nocake that “It is Indian corn parched in hot ashes, the ashes, the ashes being sifted from it; it is afterwards beaten to powder and put into a long leatherne bag trussed at the Indian’s backe like a knapsacke, out of which they take three spoonsful a day.” Roger Williams, the rounder of Rhode Island, said that a spoonful of nocake mixed with water made him “many a good meal.” Roger did not affirm, however, did not affirm that it made him a square meal, nor did he mention the size of his spoon.
In Virginai this preparation was known by another Indian name, “rockahominy” (which is not, as our dictionaries assume, a synonym for plain hominy, but a quite different thing). That most entertaining of our early woodcraftsmen, Colonel Byrd of Westover, who ran the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728-1729, speaks of it as follows:
“Rockahominy is nothing but Indian corn parched without burning, and reduced to Powder. The Fire drives out all the Watery Parts of the Corn, leaving the Strength of it behind, and this being very dry, becomes much lighter for carriage and less liable to be Spoilt by the Moist Air. Thus half a Dozen Pounds of this Sprightful Bread will sustain a Man for as many Months, provided he husband it well, and always spare it when he meets with Venison, which, as I said before, may be Safely eaten without any Bread at all. By what I have said, a Man needs not encumber himself with more than 8 or 10 Pounds of Provision, tho’ he continue half a year in the Woods. This and his Gun will support him very well during the time, without the least danger of keeping one Single Fast.”
The Moravian missionary Heckewelder, in his History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, describes how the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, preparted and used this emergency food:
“Their Psindamóoan or Tassmanáne as they call it, is the most nourishing and durable food made out of the Indian corn. The blue sweetish kind is the grain which they prefer for that purpose. They parch it in clean hot ashes, until it bursts; it is then sifted and cleaned, and pounded in a mortar into a king of flour, and when they wish to make it very good, they mix some sugar [i.e. maple sugar] with it. When wanted for use, they take about a tablespoonful of this flour in their mouths, then stooping to the river or book, drink water to it. If, however, they have a cup or other small vessel at hand, they put the flour in it and mix it with water, in the proportion of one tablespoonful to a pint. At their camps they will put a small quantity in a kettle with water and let it boil down, and they have a thick pottage. With this food the traveler and warrior will set out on long journeys and expeditions, and as a little of it will server them for a day, they have not a heavy load of provisions to carry. Persons who are unacquainted with this diet ought to be careful not to take too much at a time, and not to suffer themselves to be tempted too far by its flavor; more than one or two spoonfuls, at most, at any one time or at one meal is dangerous; for it is apt to swell in the stomach or bowels, as when heated over a fire.”
”¦.When preparing pinole [rockahominy] for mountaineering trips, I used to pulverized the parched corn in a hominy mortar, which is nothing but a three-foot cut off of a two-foot log, with a cavity chiseled out in the top, and a wooden pestle shot with iron. The hole is of smaller diameter at the bottom than at the top, so the each blow of the pestle throws most of the corn upward, and thus it is evenly powdered. Two heaping tablespoonfuls was the usual “sup,” and, if I had nothing else, I took it frequently during the day. With a handful of raisins, or a chunk of sweet chocolate or sugar, it made a square meal.
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KEPHART
It should be noted that Kephart actually made and used the stuff many times in the field, and would then have practical application knowledge. I notice that he uses more (it appears from what he writes) than what is mentioned in his primary sources.
I don’t know how much of the interior corn starch in each kernel is changed by the parching process when using whole, dried corn. I should think that high heat after grinding, instead of parching then grinding, would reduce the calories as it would carbonize some of the available starch, and reduce the amount of starch available for conversion by the body into sugar. Alas my chemistry is decades old, and perhaps it makes no difference at all?
LD
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Pinole.- All of our early chroniclers praised this parched meal as the most nourishing food known. In New England it went by the name of “nocake,” a corruption of the Indian word nookik. William Wood, who, in 1634, wrote the first topographical account of the Massachusettes colony, says of nocake that “It is Indian corn parched in hot ashes, the ashes, the ashes being sifted from it; it is afterwards beaten to powder and put into a long leatherne bag trussed at the Indian’s backe like a knapsacke, out of which they take three spoonsful a day.” Roger Williams, the rounder of Rhode Island, said that a spoonful of nocake mixed with water made him “many a good meal.” Roger did not affirm, however, did not affirm that it made him a square meal, nor did he mention the size of his spoon.
In Virginai this preparation was known by another Indian name, “rockahominy” (which is not, as our dictionaries assume, a synonym for plain hominy, but a quite different thing). That most entertaining of our early woodcraftsmen, Colonel Byrd of Westover, who ran the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728-1729, speaks of it as follows:
“Rockahominy is nothing but Indian corn parched without burning, and reduced to Powder. The Fire drives out all the Watery Parts of the Corn, leaving the Strength of it behind, and this being very dry, becomes much lighter for carriage and less liable to be Spoilt by the Moist Air. Thus half a Dozen Pounds of this Sprightful Bread will sustain a Man for as many Months, provided he husband it well, and always spare it when he meets with Venison, which, as I said before, may be Safely eaten without any Bread at all. By what I have said, a Man needs not encumber himself with more than 8 or 10 Pounds of Provision, tho’ he continue half a year in the Woods. This and his Gun will support him very well during the time, without the least danger of keeping one Single Fast.”
The Moravian missionary Heckewelder, in his History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations, describes how the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, preparted and used this emergency food:
“Their Psindamóoan or Tassmanáne as they call it, is the most nourishing and durable food made out of the Indian corn. The blue sweetish kind is the grain which they prefer for that purpose. They parch it in clean hot ashes, until it bursts; it is then sifted and cleaned, and pounded in a mortar into a king of flour, and when they wish to make it very good, they mix some sugar [i.e. maple sugar] with it. When wanted for use, they take about a tablespoonful of this flour in their mouths, then stooping to the river or book, drink water to it. If, however, they have a cup or other small vessel at hand, they put the flour in it and mix it with water, in the proportion of one tablespoonful to a pint. At their camps they will put a small quantity in a kettle with water and let it boil down, and they have a thick pottage. With this food the traveler and warrior will set out on long journeys and expeditions, and as a little of it will server them for a day, they have not a heavy load of provisions to carry. Persons who are unacquainted with this diet ought to be careful not to take too much at a time, and not to suffer themselves to be tempted too far by its flavor; more than one or two spoonfuls, at most, at any one time or at one meal is dangerous; for it is apt to swell in the stomach or bowels, as when heated over a fire.”
”¦.When preparing pinole [rockahominy] for mountaineering trips, I used to pulverized the parched corn in a hominy mortar, which is nothing but a three-foot cut off of a two-foot log, with a cavity chiseled out in the top, and a wooden pestle shot with iron. The hole is of smaller diameter at the bottom than at the top, so the each blow of the pestle throws most of the corn upward, and thus it is evenly powdered. Two heaping tablespoonfuls was the usual “sup,” and, if I had nothing else, I took it frequently during the day. With a handful of raisins, or a chunk of sweet chocolate or sugar, it made a square meal.
---------
KEPHART
It should be noted that Kephart actually made and used the stuff many times in the field, and would then have practical application knowledge. I notice that he uses more (it appears from what he writes) than what is mentioned in his primary sources.
I don’t know how much of the interior corn starch in each kernel is changed by the parching process when using whole, dried corn. I should think that high heat after grinding, instead of parching then grinding, would reduce the calories as it would carbonize some of the available starch, and reduce the amount of starch available for conversion by the body into sugar. Alas my chemistry is decades old, and perhaps it makes no difference at all?
LD
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It can also be parched in the oven on cookie sheets. I'm thinking I read that recipe in the Dixie Arms Catalog about 50 years ago. We made is using multi-colored "Indian" corn, which is a flint corn.
I saw a Hopi woman demonstrate how they make parched corn, and she use a Hopi flour corn, which also is a flint corn, that makes the finest flour. She partially filled a pan with clean sand and mixed the kernels in the sand so that they would heat completely without burning. Then after about 10-15 minutes of cooking and stirring, when she was convinced they were ready, she sifted the kernels from the sand and saved the sand to use over. She said they would either eat it like that, or pound it and mix it with water to make a drink.
I saw a Hopi woman demonstrate how they make parched corn, and she use a Hopi flour corn, which also is a flint corn, that makes the finest flour. She partially filled a pan with clean sand and mixed the kernels in the sand so that they would heat completely without burning. Then after about 10-15 minutes of cooking and stirring, when she was convinced they were ready, she sifted the kernels from the sand and saved the sand to use over. She said they would either eat it like that, or pound it and mix it with water to make a drink.
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