Shelling Corn the Old-Fashioned Way

There's the easy way and then there's the slow way. In describing how Anthony and Carol Boutard process the Roy's Calais Flint corn they grow at Ayers Creek Farm, I said that Carol used a hand-cranked, cast iron corn sheller to take the dried kernels off the corncobs.

Roy's Calais Flint corn…beautiful!

Yesterday it was my turn to learn how that part of the process works by helping Anthony shell and clean 10 large bags of corn, ending up with 175 pounds of shelled corn kernels.

Why don't they just buy an automated machine that would do the same job faster and easier? Anthony said that at a cost of more than $20,000 and at their scale of production it doesn't make economic sense. That means the old hand-cranked sheller is assured of many more seasons of work.

A Pound of Cornmeal, A Whole Lot of Work

I'd gone to Ayers Creek Farm to help with some chores, but the first thing I did was to head out behind the house where I knew Anthony had his telescope set up. This time of year it's focused on the top of an old snag about a hundred yard from the house in a grove of firs. Looking through the eyepiece, I could see three fluffy grey humps. One hump shook itself and turned into the sunlight that was just coming up over the hills to the east. Piercing golden eyes lit up, and when I whooped the other two humps turned and I was the one who was being watched.

I tore myself away from the three great horned owlets when I heard Carol starting up the gator to head over to the shed—actually a large new processing barn for the corn, beans and berries that are grown on the farm—to help grind 120 pounds of flint corn needed for the week's deliveries to some of Portland's best restaurants. Carol escorted me to the back room of the shed and introduced me to my companion for the day, a small corn mill (top video and left) that, shaking and rattling, has ground their signature Roy's Calais Flint cornmeal for the past several years.

If you've ever heard the words "artisan" or "slow food" or gone to the farmers' market and wondered how a farmer could charge several dollars for a one-pound bag of organic corn meal, I have your answer. Let's not go into the several years it takes to develop the perfect corn for your climate that grows well, is resistant to local pests and yes, tastes good, too. The year before planting, thousands of that season's harvest are sorted to find just the right kernels to use for seed for the next season's crop. When the next spring arrives, it's time to prepare the fields, plant the kernels and make sure the plants survive to maturity. In late summer the corn is harvested, the stalks are stripped, the cobs are dried for several months and then sorted to find the very best ones to grind into cornmeal.

Those selected cobs are bagged and stored until it's time to grind the corn, which is where I entered the picture. Carol had put the cobs through a hand-cranked cast iron corn sheller that removed the dried kernels, then run them through a cleaner that removed the silks and other debris from the shelling process. The crates of shelled kernels were stacked next to my grinder friend, and it would be my job to turn the machine on, fill the hopper with kernels and watch as they dribbled down through the grinder, each hopper-full filling the bucket at the bottom with around 10 pounds of cornmeal.

After the bucket was filled and I'd set it up for the next batch—it took about 20 minutes or so to run the full hopper through the grinder—I turned on the machine and then headed into the main room with the bucket of cornmeal. Each batch of the ground meal had to be hand-sieved through a mesh-bottomed frame with handles at each end, which meant dumping about three pounds at a time into the sieve and shaking it into a tub until all the meal had filtered out, leaving a pile of larger corn bits and husks from the kernels.

The sieved cornmeal was still slightly warm from the grinding, and the smell of the freshly ground corn was like fresh tortillas or a warm pot of polenta—distilled comfort. After each bucket had been sieved, I scooped the meal into a tub to weigh it out into five-pound portions that I bagged and labeled. Then it was time to run back to the grinder for the next bucket, take it out of the grinder, put in a fresh bucket and refill the hopper. Did I mention that this had to be done for 120 pounds? Right.

By mid-afternoon, having paused for a lunch on the patio of lamby-licious shawarma wraps from Izgara in nearby Forest Grove, the crates were filled with bulging bags of cornmeal ready for delivery. Baptized from head to toe in cornmeal dust, I drove back to town with a new appreciation for what it took to produce those little one-pound bags of cornmeal waiting for me on my next trip to the market.

In Season NW: Back in Balance

I try to walk the walk even as I talk the talk. But, darn it, I have to admit that, down deep, I really hate not being able to have my favorite things simply because they're not in season.

So this morning the dogs scattered like a flock of startled birds when I leapt out of bed with uncharacteristic speed, slammed down some coffee and dashed out the door to be at the Hillsdale Farmers' Market when it opened. You see, it's been weeks since Anthony and Carol of Ayers Creek have been at the market, and every store in town was out of Carol's incredible preserves.

Not only that, ever since I started making polenta from their heirloom Roy's Calais Flint corn, every other polenta seems pasty and flat in comparison. And I haven't had the heart to subject myself, not to mention our guests, to the disappointment I knew would be in the cards from making any other kind. Which explains my desperation to get there, right?

When I saw on Anthony's e-mail bulletin that they'd have a full complement of preserves along with the first of the season's polenta, there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to snag some. Of course, when I got there and saw the Aci Sivri Hungarian peppers that swept me off my feet last year, I grabbed a couple of bags of those, as well.

Now that there are six pounds of polenta sitting in the freezer, and with preserves and peppers in the cupboard, I feel so much better about winter. But maybe I'll have to get just a couple more pounds of polenta next week. Just in case.

Farm Bulletin: More on Corn

Since corn seems to be a hot topic these days at GoodStuffNW, I'm passing along our friend Anthony's most recent musings on the subject, along with a couple of the Boutard's favorite recipes. As always, you can find these fine folks at the Ayers Creek Farm stand at the Hillsdale Farmers Market every first and third Sunday of the month from 10 am till 2 pm.

Here is what we should have Sunday:

Dry Corn: Roy's Calais Flint & Nothstine Dent - Fine meal, grits & polenta meal. Polenta meal is sifted only once to pull off the coarsest fraction, the samp, and is roughly 50% meal and 50% grits. Shelled and stone ground on the Wednesday before market, assuring the freshest meal.

The dent corns are easily distinguished from the flints by the prominent dent at the top of the kernel. In these kernels, the skin (aleurone layer) is thinner at the top, appearing lighter in color, and the stuff inside (endosperm) is starchier. As the endosperm dries and shrinks, the dent is formed. Nothstine dent produces a beautiful yellow meal which is distinctly stickier than the flint, and "cornly" sweet. This type is from the area around Nothstine, Michigan, and is a traditional variety from the area. The history is sketchy, but it is probably a landrace [old seed strains that have been domesticated and modified by native farmers - KAB] for that part of Michigan. Ripening around 90 degree days, it is one of the shorter season dents, which typically need 100 to 140 days for ripening.

The dent corns are the genetic pool from which the high yielding modern varieties were developed. Nothstine, however, shows its ancient heritage with smaller ears, eight inches long with a mere 12 to 14 rows, lousy yield on par with the flints and a propensity to form fingered ears. On fingered ears, the main cob has three or four smaller branches at its base. According to Zenón, in Oaxaca these are called "Queen Ears," and considered a sign of a field with good fortune. Both Roy's Calais and Nothstine will produce kernels on their tassels as well, and sometimes the ears will develop a tassel above the husk and silk, untamed and unruly varieties that they are.

The meal and polenta may be used in any recipe calling for ground corn.

The Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) project was conceived by Gary Nabhan, University of Arizona, and is now a Slow Food USA project. Both Nothstine Dent and Roy's Calais Flint are traditional varieties identified for preservation by the project. Pennsylvania Dutch Butter (Amish Butter Popcorn) is also on the list.

Regarding popcorn, we had a very good crop of "Amish Butter" this year. However, it needs to cure thoroughly, and will not be available until the New Year. We will have some "Pink Beauty Popcorn" from Glenn and Linda Drowns curing as well. We tested some last weekend and instead of popping, the kernels spin around in the pan like a "whistling jack." Funny, but not much of a snack.

Cornmeal Cookies

There is a Slow Food Presidium (Mondoví) devoted to polenta (corn meal) cookies. Cornmeal cookies deserve a whole lot more respect...instead it's chips, chips, chips. Here is another reprise of "Holly's Cornmeal Cookies" posted many years ago on AllRecipes and repeated with earnest regularity in this newsletter. Perfect cookies for maizophyllic sorts. The lime is a nice addition, though Italians use lemon. The glaze is a dainty gesture but not really necessary. Caroline used to bake these cookies and serve them, unglazed, with frozen raspberry cream. Dabbing a bit of raspberry preserve on the cookies works in a pinch.

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/3 cup confectioner's sugar for decoration
2 Tablespoons lime juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheets.

Beat the butter and 2/3 c. sugar together until creamy. Mix in the egg and lime juice (to taste) and 1 tsp. lime zest. Blend.

In a separate bowl, combine the cornmeal, baking powder, salt and flour. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Drop teaspoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Press gently to flatten slightly. Bake for 10 to 12 min. or until the cookie bottoms and edges are lightly browned.

To make icing: Combine the lime zest, confectioner's sugar and enough lime juice to make a spreadable glaze. Spread over the top of cooled cookies.

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Joy of Cooking Corn Meal Pancakes

Our friend, Katherine Deumling, recommends the Joy of Cooking cornmeal pancake recipe. A simple and tasty recipe. Ellis will love his Sundays with corn meal pancakes.

Put 1 cup corn meal in a bowl. Add 1 tsp. salt and 1-2 Tbsp. sugar. Stir in slowly 1 cup boiling water. Cover these ingredients and permit them to stand for 10 minutes. Beat 1 egg with 1/2 c. milk and 2 Tbsp. melted butter. Add these ingredients to the corn meal. Sift together 1/2 c. all-purpose flour and 2 tsp. baking powder. Add to corn meal mixture with a few swift strokes. Fry until golden in a cast iron pan.

Farm Bulletin: What Makes Polenta

Anthony and Carol Boutard are back at the market after a hectic corn harvest. Lucky for us they were able to dry and grind their own polenta again this year. It's been said that their fresh-ground polenta is as close as you can get to that found in Italy. You can find them at the Hillsdale Farmers' Market on Sunday from 10 am till 2 pm. Anthony writes:

Our 2004 seed order to High Mowing [seed company] ended with a hastily added item: #2390 - Roy's Calais Flint. We were without any miller's knowledge or the foggiest idea of what we were doing, but the description hooked us. There was a dry description how a jar of corn seeds was found in recently deceased Roy Fair's basement. Roy Fair had maintained this old New England landrace [def: particular kinds of old varieties that are farmer-selected in areas where local subsistence agriculture has long prevailed] for decades in his Calais, Vermont garden. The description ended with the hook for us: "Makes good cornbread." That understated declaration had the voice of authority, no hyperbole employed. We added the good cornbread corn to the order and recalculated the total. By October, we were amateur millers savoring the fragrance of freshly ground corn. Like all millers, we are now dreaming of owning a really big millstone.

This flint is a very short season corn that ripens in 70 days or so. The plants are short as well, four to five feet tall, with red or green stalks. The foot-long ears have eight rows of kernels, and the color ranges from dark mahogany through pumpkin orange to a buttery yellow. Unlike the ornamental"painted" corns, all of the kernels on a plant are the same color. The color of the plant stalk is unrelated to the color of the grain. This is the corn the colonists of New England encountered as they moved inland, away from the white flints of the coastal areas.

The revered "mais otto file" of northern Italy is identical to Roy's Calais. Perhaps the Italian stonemasons who cut marble in the quarries of western Massachusetts and southern Vermont sent some ears back home. In growing the corn, we have come to appreciate the influence of the pigment on the grain. As a group, the red pigmented ears are the first to ripen in the field, a week or so earlier than the lighter colors. The yellow kernels tend to split in wetter weather, sometime germinating within the unshucked the ear. The orange ears are damaged by earworms, but are resistant to the aphids which attack both the red and yellow ears. In the Piedmont [of Italy], the highest altitude farms have selected out the red ears. At lower altitudes the orange and yellow types prevail. They are all referred to as otto file irrespective of color.

On our terrace of the Wapato Valley, we are going to keep the full range of colors, though we have shifted the proportion of red ears from 10% found in the original to 30%. Our target is 1/3 red, 1/3 orange and 1/3 yellow. The lightest yellows will likely drop out of the mix over time as they set their tassels and ripen quite a bit later, and often have poorly filled ears as a result.

[At the market] We will have grits and meal, as well as a polenta meal which includes both the grits and meal. We use the polenta meal for most everything that calls for either grits or meal. Best of both worlds. When cooking with fresh cornmeal, bear in mind that it absorbs much more liquid than stale meal, just the same as beans. We start at one part meal to three parts water, and work from there. The meal is unbolted (whole grain) and is best stored in the freezer. If you have a bit of raw squash kicking around, Cory Shreiber [former chef and owner of Wildwood] suggests adding some with the meal.

Details: Ayers Creek Farm at the Hillsdale Farmers Market. 10 am-2 pm on the first and third Sundays of the month. Intersecton of SW Sunset Blvd. and Capitol Hwy., just behind the Hillsdale Shopping Center.