Where to Buy Dried Blue Corn in Dc
FARE OF THE COUNTRY
FARE OF THE COUNTRY; A Native American Delicacy: Blue Corn
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June 28, 1987
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The first blue corn I ever had was a purple-flecked tortilla, wrapped (untraditionally, I know now) around chicken and cheese, and smothered with green chili sauce and sour cream - an enchilada at a little restaurant called Sofio's in Telluride, Colo. Recently arrived from Boston, I had never seen the stonelike shadowy surface of a blue corn tortilla against the pale soft green of chili sauce, the white of sour cream. The colors and textures seemed as Southwestern as adobe. Blue corn tortillas are coarser, grainier and crumblier than those made of yellow corn, and this tortilla fell apart on my tongue. That night I felt as if I were eating earth - not dirt, but food that was somehow connected to the richness of earth. This, compared with the tortillas I had eaten in Boston, probably prefried from a box, was like the difference between backyard and hothouse tomatoes.
Long cultivated on the high, dry plateaus and in the river valleys of northern New Mexico and the mesas of northern Arizona, blue corn is only sometimes truly blue. On the cob, blue corn may be a deep midnight bluish black, or a pearly, steely gray, or the nearly black purplish gray of summer storm clouds.
Like all corns, a strain of Zea mays, blue corn is what is known as a flour corn - hard on the outside, soft and white on the inside, and starchy rather than sweet. Almost always it is dried, and then ground into the gritty pale lavender meal or flour that gives blue corn tortillas and chips their characteristic color, texture and flavor.
Though blue corn is now used to make muffins, pancakes, waffles, chips and pizza dough - and there is even a popcorn that is blue - blue corn appears most often as a tortilla. In New Mexico it is as flat (not wrapped), layered enchiladas, or as soft tacos folded like half moons, or as the bottom layer of murky huevos rancheros (eggs on top of tortillas with chili sauce).
Traditionally hand planted, hand cultivated, and hand harvested (because of a tendency for the fully loaded stalks to fall over in the fields), and consequently more scarce and more expensive than white and yellow corn, blue corn, until recently, rarely appeared outside the Southwest. It's a staple of the Pueblo tribes, who grow it for themselves and use it to make a hot cereal called atole, various boiled breads and dumplings, and a very thin, many layered rolled bread (similar to phyllo dough) called paper bread. Blue corn was adopted by Hispanic settlers for tortillas - and tortillas were adopted by the Pueblos - the form in which it has appeared in restaurants serving New Mexican specialties for years. Like most breads, blue corn tortillas taste better when eaten the day they are made, and since few restaurants make their own tortillas, some of the best blue corn specialties are found within delivery distance of a blue corn tortilleria (a place where tortillas are made).
One of the best places to try blue corn enchiladas and soft tacos is Josie's Casa de Comida. Particularly good with Josie's own green chili sauce, they and Josie's pies have helped keep this small unpretentious place a local lunch favorite for 40 years. Another local favorite, the Shed (not a shed, but a little restaurant in Santa Fe's Prince Plaza), also serves layered blue corn enchiladas and soft tacos, but with red chili sauce. La Tertulia, another establishment with a well-deserved reputation and a loyal local clientele, offers a good blue corn enchilada with red chili sauce, as well as an outstanding black bean and jalapeno soup, in a pleasant adobe building that was once a convent. At Cafe Pasqual's, try Dave's ''bruiser burrito,'' an untraditional blue corn burrito with black beans and brown rice, topped with guacamole, sour cream and red or green chili sauce. And, if you're in Taos, the Apple Tree stuffs soft tacos with chicken and avocado and tops them with a mild green chili sauce.
To the Pueblo tribes, whose ancestors brought the seed from the more southern Americas, blue corn is more than a treat for the tongue.
Pueblo people are said to have emerged from the spirit world with corn seed, and corn plays an important part in many rituals. Most Pueblo tribes planted at least six colors of corn -blue, white, yellow, red, black and multicolored - and each has particular uses and significance. Blue corn meal is sometimes used in naming ceremonies for newborn babies, in the rituals attending marriage and death, and in the dances that are part of seasonal prayers for rain. At least one anthropologist, Richard Ford, has suggested that the colors of corn helped the Pueblos survive the capricious weather of the high Southwestern plateaus - preserving the purity of color strains required planting in different fields, which dispersed the risk of total crop loss by frost or hail or flood.
Traditionally dried on rooftops and stored on the cob (because it was less susceptible to insects that way), blue corn, like other corns, was ground as needed, on a large stone basin or slab called a metate, by a smaller handheld stone called a mano. The industriousness, and consequently the marriageability, of young girls was once judged by their diligence at grinding cornmeal and their skill at making paper bread.
Out of all the traditional foods that the Pueblos make with blue cornmeal, paper bread, or piki, as it is called by the Hopi, is probably the least adaptable to contemporary life, and as such remains a link to the Pueblo past. Still cooked over an open fire on large, flat, black, almost glassy, rectangular stones that are handed down from mother to daughter, piki making takes years of practice to master. The hot stone is greased with sheep's brains; then a very thin, almost transparent, layer of batter (made of cornmeal, ash and water) is spread across the stone by hand. The batter cooks very quickly into a phyllo-like sheet, and then is peeled off the stone, folded and rolled.
Piki is still made in most Hopi villages on the reservations in northern Arizona, and a day or two before weddings and certain dances, smoke rises from the chimneys of the various piki houses. Sometimes, if you ask, it is possible to watch piki being made.
Today blue corn is also grown commercially, and the bulk of the volume is used to make chips. Based on taste alone, it can be difficult to distinguish blue corn chips from those made of yellow corn. Still, the murky, grainy, lavender-gray or the deep, dark, sometimes greenish blue color of the chips, and their roughness on the tongue, serve to remind of the richness of earth. A BRIEF GUIDE TO SAMPLING Santa Fe, N. M.
Josie's Casa de Comida, 225 East Marcy; 505-983-5311. 11 A.M. to 4 P.M., Monday through Friday. Blue corn enchiladas and soft tacos with Josie's own red and green chili sauce. Also serves pozole, black bean soup, hamburgers with guacamole, sandwiches and pie made fresh daily by Josie. Lunch for two, including dessert, $10 to $15.
La Tertulia, 416 Agua Fria; 505-988-2769. 11:30 A.M. to 2 and 5 to 9 P.M., closed Monday. New Mexico-style layered blue corn enchiladas and an outstanding black bean soup made with jalapeno and sherry. Lunch for two, $10 to $15. Dinner for two, with house wine or beer or sangria, $20 to $40.
The Shed, 113 1/2 Palace; 505-982-9030. Lunch only 11 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. Monday through Saturday. Blue corn enchiladas and tacos with red chili sauce. Lunch for two, $10 to $15, not including the house wine. Beer, Mexican and Anchor Steam, is also served.
Cafe Pasqual's, 121 Don Gaspar; 505-983-9340. Breakfast and lunch 7 A.M. to 3 P.M., closed Wednesdays. Sunday brunch 8 A.M. to 2 P.M. In addition to Dave's ''bruiser burrito'' (a blue corn burrito with black beans and brown rice and guacamole), the menu includes blue corn tostadas, huevos rancheros, enchiladas and blue corn chips. Lunch for two: $15. Taos, N.M.
The Apple Tree,> 26 Bent Street; 505-758-1900. Lunch 11 A.M. to 3 P.M., Monday through Saturday, brunch 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. Sunday, espresso room open 3 to 9:30 P.M. daily, dinners 5 to 9:30 P.M. Blue corn soft tacos stuffed with chicken and avocado, topped with mild green chili sauce. Also cheese and chicken enchiladas, and blue corn huevos rancheros for Sunday brunch. Lunch for two with wine $10 to $25 or $30, dinner $20 to $50. Second Mesa, Ariz.
The Hopi Cultural Center Restaurant, Route 264 (five miles west of State Route 87); 602-734-2401. Daily 7 A.M. to 8 P.M. Decidedly off the Santa Fe-Taos axis, about halfway between the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly. Serves blue corn breakfasts - pancakes, piki, blue corn flakes (crushed piki) and blue corn grits - and American breakfasts. About $5. By Mail
Blue corn products may be ordered from the following sources:
The Blue Corn Connection, 8812 Fourth Street, Albuquerque, N.M. 87114; 505-897-2412. Try Ross's Blue Heaven Blue Corn Pancake & Waffle Mix, also the blue popcorn.
Casados Farms, Box 852, San Juan Pueblo, N.M. 87566; 505-852-2433. Blue corn and blue corn meal.
Josie's Best New Mexican Foods, 1130 Agua Fria, Post Office Box 5525, Santa Fe, N.M. 87501; 505-983-6520. Not affiliated with Josie's Casa de Comida, this Josie's is a small, family-owned and operated tortilleria that specializes in blue corn tortillas. In Santa Fe, Josie's tortillas are sold in many local stores. Will accept mail orders for tortillas only if buyer pays extra charges for Federal Express or other air freight. Also accepts mail orders for blue corn meal and chips.
The Chile Shop, 109 East Water Street, Santa Fe, N.M. 87501; 505-983-6080. Blue corn meal, atole, Ross's Blue Heaven Pancake & Waffle Mix, muffin mix, popping corn. Try the blue corn tortilla chips from San Ildefonso Pueblo.
In New York, some blue corn products may be found at Balducci's (424 Avenue of the Americas, between 9th and 10th Streets; 212-673-2600), Dean & Deluca (121 Prince Street; 212-431-1691) and Grace's Market Place (1237 Third Avenue, near 71st Street; 212-737-0600). - S. B.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/28/travel/fare-of-the-country-a-native-american-delicacy-blue-corn.html
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