| My interest in quinoa was sparked in 1982, when I travelled to Peru for 3 months. It was in the Andean highlands that the cultivation and use of quinoa began an estimated 6,000 years ago, according to archeological and botanical research in the region. The Inca empire, which ruled the region from the 12th Century up until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, venerated quinoa as the Mother Grain and devoted a lot of ritual to its planting and use.
Nevertheless, the Peru I visited in 1982 was a quinoa desert, gastronomically speaking. The Spanish conquistadors had long ago disparaged quinoa as 'food for Indians,' and this attitude continued well into modern times. For example, when Peru began importing large quantities of wheat in the 1940s, quinoa production plummeted, dropping from 111,000 acres in 1941 to just 32,000 acres in 1974.
Indeed, I can't specifically remember, these many years later, if I ate any quinoa at all during my Peruvian trip in 1982. It wasn't generally found in restaurants, and if I did have any, it was by pure chance in some small local eatery.
Nevertheless, I was familiar with the mystique of quinoa, and so when it began to show up in health food stores in the later 1980s, I was thrilled, if not really sure what to do with it. I was also thrilled to find, in the late '80s, a Peruvian restaurant way over on Ninth Avenue in New York City that had it on the menu.
I'm happy to say that in the ensuing 20 years, quinoa has become increasingly popular again, enjoying a reputaion as a 'supergrain.' It is not only high in protein (12-18%), but it also contains all the essential amino acids to make it a complete protein on its own. It is also high in many other vitamins and minerals. One-half cup of dry quinoa contains 629 mg of Potassium. 42 mcg of folic acid, 7.9 mg of iron, and 179 mg. magnesium. You'll get up to 14% of your daily recommended dose of B vitamins, 5 grams of fiber, and nearly the same amount of calcium as you'd get from a quart of milk.
And, of course, it is gluten-free. Indeed, quinoa is not even in the same family of such grass-based grains as wheat, rye, barley or oats. It is the seed of a leafy green (also edible, though impossible to find.) And, yes, it's kosher!
The taste is subtle on its own, like most grains acting as a canvas on which to paint other ingredients and flavors. But that subtle taste is slightly nutty, with a creamy texture that still retains a bit of tactile bite to it, thanks to its little tail of germ.
And let's not forget the fact that it is beautiful, or at least I think so. When cooked, it's little germ becomes a tadpole-like tail curled within a tiny round pillow. The most commonly found quinoa is white, but it is also increasingly available in heirloom varieties of red and black. It is thanks to the resurgent interest in quinoa that these heirloom varieties have survived and are beginning to thrive. They very well could have been lost to us forever.
Quinoa-based dishes are no longer so hard to find. Whole Foods usually has at least on preparation in their salad bar, magazines are featuring it, and Nuevo Andino cuisine is becoming hot in restaurants. On my last visit to Peru, in 2002, I found it in a lot of restaurants, both humble and chi-chi. (Mmmm...go to the Inka Grill on the Plaza de Armas next time you're in Cusco...don't forget the Coca Leaf Creme Brulee for dessert!) In fact, for the Portland, Oregon people here at La Vida Locavore, I see that there's a place called Andina that specializes in it.
As for buying, there are some US sources of organic quinoa, among them White Mountain Farm and Green Earth Farm. Still, most of the quinoa you buy will be imported from South America.
As I said at the outset, you won't be eating locavoraciously when you eat this, but there is still sufficient righteousness. Thanks to its growing popularity, quinoa production has halted its precipitous decline in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and is on the rise again, with all those heirloom varieties being brought back into wider production as well. You can help promote organic farming and a livable income for the indigenous people of the Andes. There is the ANAPQUI co-op in Bolivia, for example:
Before Anapqui was formed, miserable market conditions forced growers to sell what they did not use at home for below production costs. Bartering with intermediaries, quinoa producers were forced to trade under patently unfair asymmetries: Three pounds of quinoa, for instance, only garnered one pound of wheat flour.
Berno Rodríguez, a lifelong quinoa farmer and former president of a local Anapqui branch, says times were tough before the organization was founded.
"Buyers used to barter with us, and we were being cheated," he says. "But we rose up, organized, and that got us a much better deal, especially now that we have relationships with the gringos."
With growing U.S. and European demand for organic, healthy foods, as well as fair trade products, Anapqui's members turned to producing organic quinoa in 1990. Besides the economic benefits, Rodríguez says, "we realized that with pesticides, we were really just poisoning ourselves, so we decided it would be better to do it the way our grandparents have done for millennia, and now it's written into our communal rules."
Anapqui offers its members prices above the going market rate for conventionally grown quinoa, 100 pounds of which can go for as little as $25. Anapqui buys organic quinoa for as much as $32-not exactly the "caviar of the Andes," but the extra $7 can make a world of difference in a country where most people scrape by on less than $2 a day.
You can get ANAPQUI quinoa, including heirloom varieties, from such places as Alter Eco Fair Trade, available in my local Whole Foods.
Another story from Ecuador:
On the quinoa project, the IDB is working through Ecuador's Corporation for the Promotion of Exports and Investments and a rural nonprofit called ERPE. The IDB's $84,000 investment is going toward creating a system to track quinoa production from field to dining table, and developing an internal quality-control system that would lower the cost of certification and encourage others to join the initiative.
Ecuador's indigenous groups have been growing quinoa for centuries, but the product hasn't always been well received, said Juan Pérez, the executive director of ERPE.
''For a long time, people called quinoa Indian food, and in the city they wouldn't eat it,'' he said. Farmers grew it for personal consumption. Those who did sell it did so at a loss.
But as international demand for the product has started to grow, the national market is taking a second look. Now, demand is making quinoa production ''one of the few avenues that farmers have to make a dignified living,'' Pérez said.
Balla will get about $38 for a 220-pound sack of organic quinoa and an additional $3 from fair-trade organizations in Europe. That's about $15 more than she would receive at the local market for traditional quinoa. In this part of the nation, where most people live on just a few hundred dollars a year, $15 makes a difference.
''I don't even try to sell at the market anymore,'' said Balla, 18, who uses the income to support her grandmother. "They offer prices that are too low and then tell you to go away if you ask for more.''
Thousands of miles away in Athens, Ga., the owners of Inca Organic buy from ERPE and other Ecuadorean cooperatives to supply U.S. makers of gluten-free crackers and specialty pilaf products sold in Whole Foods and Wild Oats stores.
Basic preparation of quinoa is simple: one cup of quinoa and two cups of liquid, simmered for 15-20 minutes in a covered pot, just like rice. The one trick is that quinoa usually needs to be rinsed well before cooking to remove the remnants of the bitter-tasting saponin coating that occurs naturally (and probably helps protect the plant from predators.) Some packaged varieties of quinoa you find on the shelf will be pre-rinsed, saving this step, but many aren't and if you buy it in bulk you probably will need to rinse well also. You can use it in just about any of your grain-based recipes
Quinoa is also available as flour and flakes, so you can use it for baking. It evidently can be sprouted as well, if you'd like to give that a try.
Recipes. I know, you want recipes. In truth, I'm more of a recipe follower, or at best a recipe modifier, on my own, and I'm not clear what the Fair Practices are for reprinting recipes from other sources, so perhaps I'll leave that to you in the comments. I can point you to a nice Quinoa Tabbouleh in Sheila Lukin's All Around the World Cookbook, with avocado, corn, red onions, tomatoes and cilantro. Or here are a few websites:
Curried Quinoa and Peruvian Vegetable Stew
Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Quinoa Salad; Quinoa-Stuffed Pears
A lot of recipes here |
