Quinoa:
quinoa.net
quinoa.net
quinoa.net
Although new to North Americans, it has been cultivated in the highest continuously farmed region of the earth, the South American Andes, since at least 3,000 B.C. The ancient Incas called it “the mother grain” and revered it as sacred. Compared to other grains and vegetables, it is high in protein, calcium, and iron. One researcher has said that “while no single food can supply all of the essential life-sustaining nutrients, (it) comes as close as any other in the vegetable or animal kingdoms.”
This amazing ancient food now in the process of being rediscovered by modern eaters is quinoa (pronounced “keenwa”). In South America, a renewed respect for indigenous crops and traditional foods has reversed a 400-year decline in quinoa production that began with the Spanish conquest.
What is this strange grain that holds so much promise? And what factors have prevented it so far from fulfilling that promise?
Quinoa is a small seed that in size, shape, and color looks like a cross between sesame seed and millet. It is disk shaped with a flattened or depressed equatorial band around its periphery. It is usually a pale yellow color but some species may vary from almost white through pink, orange, or red to purple and black.
Quinoa is not a true cereal grain but is technically a fruit of the Chenopodium family. Chenopodium plants have characteristic leaves shaped like a goose foot. The genus also includes our common weed, lamb's-quarters. Quinoa is an annual herb that grows from three to six feet high, and like millet its seeds are in large clusters at the end of the stalk.
The seeds are covered with saponin, a resin-like substance that is extremely bitter and forms a soapy solution in water. To be edible, the saponin must be removed. Traditionally, saponin has been removed by laboriously hand scrubbing the quinoa in alkaline water.
(There is some controversy regarding saponin. Some agriculturists maintain that a saponin-free strain of quinoa should be developed - its removal process has been one factor limiting quinoa's production and marketing. On the other hand, ecologists observe that the bitter-tasting saponin probably prevents insect and bird predation and that it is better to wash away the saponin than to have to rely on insecticides.)
Because quinoa has been grown for centuries under varied ecological conditions there is no "pure" strain. Quinoa is predominately an in breeder and any given crop is composed of a mixture of inbred lines. Thus, quinoa varies greatly within a given region and from region to region. Peru and Bolivia have quinoa seed banks that total over eighteen hundred ecotype samples of quinoa.
The edible seed of the quinoa plant has been called both a pseudo-cereal and a pseudo-oilseed because of its unique nutritional profile. It is high in protein compared to other grains, although it is also high in oil and fat.
Some wheats come close to matching quinoa's protein content, but cereals such as barley, corn, and rice generally have less than half the protein of quinoa. Also, quinoa has a good balance of the amino acids that make up the protein. Quinoa is also a good complement for legumes, which are often low in methionine and cystine. In addition, quinoa is a relatively good source of phosphorous, calcium, iron, vitamin E, and several of the B vitamins.
Of equal importance as quinoa's nutritional benefits is the hardiness of this plant. Unlike most other food crops, quinoa thrives with low rainfall; high altitudes (and therefore high radiation levels); thin, cold air; hot sun; subfreezing temperatures; and even poor, sandy, alkaline soil.
It is this ability to thrive where few other food crops can that has allowed quinoa to remain the staple of millions of descendants of the Inca Empire.
The Aymara and Quechua Indians who live in the high mountainous regions of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, southern Colombia, and northern Argentina and Chile grow most of the world's quinoa. In the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, where annual rainfall may be as low as four inches, quinoa is the principal food crop and, in some areas, it approaches constituting a monoculture. Here Chenopodium quinoa Wild assumes the level of importance that the buffalo once had for the Plains Indians of North America. The cereal is prepared whole, like rice, or made into flour for bread and biscuits; its leaves are eaten as a vegetable or used for animal fodder; the stalks are burned for fuel; and the saponin-filled wash water is used as a shampoo.
Quinoa has been a popular food among natives of the Andean altiplano for millennia. Its ability to grow in high, often cold altitudes ensured that corn and most other crops could not compete with it. When Pizarro and his army marched into Inca territory in 1532, they discovered a well organized and even sophisticated food and agricultural system supporting the Incas. The three primary staple foods were potatoes, maize, and quinoa.
With the advent of the Spaniard's rule, and the subsequent repression of many aspects of native South American culture, quinoa production went into a tailspin from which it has only recently begun to recover. Like amaranth, the ceremonial grain of the Aztecs which today is also becoming popular again, quinoa may have been actively suppressed as a means of disrupting and dispiriting the Incas. The Spanish imported European livestock to the lower altitude valleys, and encouraged cultivation of the more widely adaptable corn and potatoes.
The peasants and campesinos in the more remote areas still cultivated quinoa, though. In the twentieth century, other factors have come into play to prevent quinoa from becoming important to a wider population. North American exportation of huge wheat surpluses has acted to skew internal markets in poorer countries such as Peru and Colombia. Cheap, U.S.-subsidized white flour discourages cultivation of quinoa and native wheats.
Then there was the well intentioned but misguided attempt at agricultural reform known as the Green Revolution. Farmers in developing countries around the world were encouraged to abandon traditional crops and instead raise cash crops. Special high-yielding varieties were developed, but over the past decade it has become clear that there is a considerable price to be paid for the loss of diversity, both cultural and agricultural. Agrarian reform has now begun to swing the other way, to preserving the earth's genetic diversity and selecting crops with an eye toward local ecological and environmental conditions.
In Peru, which has always been the world's leading producer of quinoa, the total acreage of planted quinoa was 116,000 acres in 1951. It dropped to 79,000 in 1955 and bottomed out at 37,000 acres in 1975. It is now on the rise and the latest figures put quinoa cultivation at about 62,000 acres.
However, in Bolivia, which has some 50,000 acres of quinoa growing, the grain is probably of even greater importance. Indigenous cultures are more prominent in Bolivia than Peru, where the more dominant urban whites tend to disdain native food products and the government's food policies downplay traditional crops. Quinoa's importance to Bolivia was underscored in 1983, when a serious drought led to crop losses ranging up to 66 percent for potatoes and 54 percent for barley. Quinoa production was barely affected in some areas the dry weather even produced bumper yields of quinoa.
Steve Gorad sums up the problems thus: "In areas of greatest quinoa production it's hard to find quinoa in a restaurant. You ask for it and people are embarrassed to admit knowledge of it. Radio and television commercials obviously promote refined foods. Native foods must compete against an international food system as well as cultural ignorance."
The story of quinoa's introduction into the U.S. is a fascinating one. I decided to hear it from the principals themselves. After a fifty-minute flight east over the continental divide to Boulder, I met Gorad, who is president of the Quinoa Corporation. We drove a short distance to his five person office and warehouse in the new commercial section of town.
The Quinoa Corporation looks like a typical Boulder office with its butcher block furniture, view of the Flatiron Mountains, and photos tacked to the wall. A clue to its unique purpose lies with the photos they are of Bolivian Indians and the large map of South America on the kitchen wall. To the north of the offices, the 3,000 square foot warehouse is filled to the brim with quinoa.
Gorad's salt and pepper hair is the only clue that at forty-two years, he's not a youngster. Soft-spoken, with dark deep eyes, he offered me some South American tea de coca and then launched into a discussion of quinoa.
"Quinoa's most pragmatic quality," observed Gorad, "is that it's a basic food with strong earth energy. People who try it categorically respond, 'This tastes good!"
What, if anything, will help to popularize it? "Quinoa is so good nutritionally that its impact gets through to the body with the message this stuff is good I want more."
The quinoa Corporation's story starts in 1976 when Gorad, who has a doctorate in psychology, and Don McKinley, a friend who was then working for a shoe company, were in Boston studying with the Bolivian founder of Arica, Oscar Ichazo. Ichazo mentioned quinoa in his teaching as "a very nutritious food which is good to eat when doing mystical work."
The next year found Gorad in La Paz, Bolivia where he promptly purchased quinoa and tried it. "I put it in an open pot and as I watched it cook, I fell in love with quinoa," he said.
After his first pot of quinoa Gorad started contacting South American scientists and quinoa growers. "In 1978 I brought back fifty pounds of quinoa to the U.S. I took it around to all my friends, including Don McKinley. I cooked it, served it to them, and asked, 'Do you like it?' The response was one hundred percent, 'Yes."
Gorad and McKinley wanted to market quinoa in the U.S. but the problems of availability stopped them. To gather grain by going from one remote Indian settlement to another was impossible. There was at that time no commercial or political support for developing quinoa. The project went on the backburner again.
In 1982 Gorad was living in Chile, married to a Chilean woman, and teaching and writing about holistic health. He received a letter from Don McKinley asking for quinoa seed. Since his Boston Arica days, McKinley had traveled to Brazil importing wool and shoes, driven a taxi in Hawaii, and landed in Boulder with a highly successful advertising business.
McKinley, now thirty-six, told me, "The whole time I was driving a cab and doing the wool and graphics businesses, I was always thinking about quinoa. How could we market it in the states? One day the obvious occurred to me let's grow it in Colorado! I wrote to Steve and asked him for seed quinoa.
"I next contacted David Cusack," continued McKinley. Cusack brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the enterprise. He had grown up on a high altitude potato farm in central Colorado, and had lived, taught, and worked on development projects in the Andean countries since 1968. He had a doctorate in international development and a master's degree in agriculture and environmental management. He had also founded Sierra Blanca Associates, a research group that sought to spread practical applications of science and technology across cultures. McKinley said, "I told him of our project and he immediately got involved. We located a San Luis Valley farmer at an 8,000-foot elevation in acrid central Colorado who was willing to plat a five-acre test field. Now we just needed the seed."
Gorad put the word out that he wanted seed quinoa. The limited supply in local markets often had had its saponin washed off and therefore would not germinate. Weeks and weeks went by and no one responded.
"I'd given up on getting seed in time to plant for an '82 test crop." Commented Gorad. "Then, the day before my flight back to the states, a Chilean friend knocked on my door with fifteen pounds of beautiful pink, yellow, and red seed. He was a simple man and did not think it proper to accept money for the seed, so I gave him the shirt I was wearing."
The quinoa was planted that spring and harvested in October. "We harvested it by hand, threshed and winnowed it by hand, and washed the saponin off. Then we cooked it and ate it and it was delicious," Gorad said with a grin.
The next year, 1983, they tested forty-eight varieties on less than fifty acres and only six worked. Last year 100 varieties of quinoa were planted on over 125 acres and a few more grew successfully. These figures may sound inconsequential, but the corporation is most optimistic about quinoa's progress in Colorado. It takes ten years to develop a new strain of wheat and reflect on the backlog of information we now have on wheat! The introduction of a cereal into a new environment is a lengthy process, and according to the experts, quinoa is right on target.
"That our first seed even grew," Gorad commented, "was pure grace. It has now grown in Colorado for three summers and it's still working well."
Would quinoa actually sell in a store? This past June a test market was made in Boulder's new natural food store, Alfalfa's. "We served prepared quinoa and quinoa cookies and pudding at their demonstration kiosk," McKinley related. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Alfalfa's is currently selling 700 pounds of quinoa per month.
But is selling quinoa in Boulder the same as selling it in Kalamazoo?
"Maybe not." McKinley said," but we've got mail orders for it in Kalamazoo."
Two days after Alfalfa's demonstration the local paper reported David Cusack's murder, the victim of a robbery attempt near La Paz, Bolivia. Cusack had been instrumental in the revival of quinoa. His death was a severe blow to all who knew him, and a setback for continued quinoa experimentation and production in both North and South America.
Gorad said, "We thought that was the end of us and that the Quinoa Corporation would close down. But strange as it sounds, we were strengthened by it. David would have wanted it that way."
My visit with Gorad and McKinley stretched into the afternoon. Despite the element of tragedy, their story warmed me. Finally, it was past time to go, but not before experiencing quinoa firsthand. Quinoa seed, which is saponin covered, is all the earth colors. Steve showed me a dozen carefully packaged and labeled test samples and each was a different color. The colors were vibrant raspberry reds, purples, blue-blacks, brilliant oranges, translucent pinks quinoa is beautiful.
Quinoa ready to cook is usually pale yellow. The disk shaped seed has a band about its periphery. As the grain cooks, this band partially separates from the seed but retains its curved shape. In appearance cooked quinoa looks liked cooked couscous sprinkled with little spirals or crescent moons.
The grain itself seems to melt in your mouth. But the tiny bands offer just enough tooth resistance to create a minute crunch, affording a varied and pleasant sensation.
An experience to be savored, eating quinoa, and one that deserves more fans.
April 1985
East West Journal |
