bread) yields much greater culinary treasure: its long brown seed pods, which, when ripe, can be ground to make a flourlike meal. Mesquite meal is almost stunningly delicious, as well as nutrient-rich. Quite sweet (though low on the glycemic index), relatively high in protein, it’s been used by natives of vast parts of the Southwest and Central Americas. I guarantee you have never tasted anything quite like it: Rich, haunting undernotes, a bit nutty, yet also reminiscent of chocolate and cinnamon, it’s a buff-brown colored, slightly granular flour (in short, a meal). It has become one of my favorite unusual ingredients to play with. (For more information, see the Pantry, page 355 .)
Mesquite meal makes an already good, more-or-less classic skillet cornbread that much more delicioso. To purchase this flavorful flour, go to www.cocinadevega.com.
1 tablespoon butter or bacon drippings
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1¼ cups stone-ground blue or yellow cornmeal
½ cup mesquite meal
3 tablespoons unbleached white or whole wheat pastry flour
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Put the butter or bacon drippings in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, and place it in the oven.
2. Combine the eggs and buttermilk in a small bowl or measuring cup, whisking together well with a fork. Combine the sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cornmeal, mesquite meal, and flour in a medium bowl.
3. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients, beating with a whisk until the dry ingredients are moistened and incorporated. Do not overbeat. The batter will be on the thin side.
4. Pull the skillet from the oven. It should be good and hot, with the fat sizzling. Quickly transfer the batter to the hot skillet, and return the skillet to the oven.
5. Bake until firm, fragrant, and browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve in wedges from the pan.
“If all we had were mesquites,
we’d still have roosts for birds,
holes for bugs, flowers for bees.
We’d still have furniture,
fence posts, and fires,
coffee and flour and jelly.
The past would still have
its wagon wheels, spokes,
gumdrops and glue.
The future would be sure
with places for kids to climb,
and rest for all in dappled shade.”
—J AN E PTON S EALE ,
“I N P RAISE OF M ESQUITES,”
WWW.PRAIRIEPOETRY.ORG
P IKI : F OOD OF P EACEABLE P EOPLE
One bite of piki, its gossamer-thin, shatteringly fragile blue-gray rolled layers—crisp and then instantly tender in your mouth, full of grainy corn flavor yet so light and delicate the word bread seems not to apply—and you know you are eating something quite unlike anything else; something almost otherworldly. But piki is and isn’t just food, just as it’s wholly of this world yet also spiritual. This old dish—Hopis have been making piki since at least 1,500 years before the birth of Christ—is life’s connective tissue for this venerable lineage of humanity, whose name means “the peaceable people.” Piki is one reason this lineage has continued unbroken for so long. It links here-and-now with past and future, generations before with generations to come. Piki, its mysterious blue-gray color deepened by the use of culinary ash, is both everyday food and feast food. For the former, the thin batter-breads are formed into slightly more sturdy rolls, about ten to twelve inches long and two inches wide. These are eaten not with the bowl-scraping roughness we use for bread or tortillas (piki are far too delicate) but as an accompaniment to stews. For special feasts, celebrations, and ceremonies, the dough is made into folded piki, each about eight inches square.
Long before piki is rolled or folded, before the batter is even mixed up, the process begins: with a piki stone. Some piki stones, usually about three feet long by two feet wide and always of dense, flat basaltic or volcanic rock, have been in families for years.
Corn, the primary crop raised by these great
Mesquite meal makes an already good, more-or-less classic skillet cornbread that much more delicioso. To purchase this flavorful flour, go to www.cocinadevega.com.
1 tablespoon butter or bacon drippings
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1¼ cups stone-ground blue or yellow cornmeal
½ cup mesquite meal
3 tablespoons unbleached white or whole wheat pastry flour
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Put the butter or bacon drippings in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, and place it in the oven.
2. Combine the eggs and buttermilk in a small bowl or measuring cup, whisking together well with a fork. Combine the sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cornmeal, mesquite meal, and flour in a medium bowl.
3. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients, beating with a whisk until the dry ingredients are moistened and incorporated. Do not overbeat. The batter will be on the thin side.
4. Pull the skillet from the oven. It should be good and hot, with the fat sizzling. Quickly transfer the batter to the hot skillet, and return the skillet to the oven.
5. Bake until firm, fragrant, and browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve in wedges from the pan.
“If all we had were mesquites,
we’d still have roosts for birds,
holes for bugs, flowers for bees.
We’d still have furniture,
fence posts, and fires,
coffee and flour and jelly.
The past would still have
its wagon wheels, spokes,
gumdrops and glue.
The future would be sure
with places for kids to climb,
and rest for all in dappled shade.”
—J AN E PTON S EALE ,
“I N P RAISE OF M ESQUITES,”
WWW.PRAIRIEPOETRY.ORG
P IKI : F OOD OF P EACEABLE P EOPLE
One bite of piki, its gossamer-thin, shatteringly fragile blue-gray rolled layers—crisp and then instantly tender in your mouth, full of grainy corn flavor yet so light and delicate the word bread seems not to apply—and you know you are eating something quite unlike anything else; something almost otherworldly. But piki is and isn’t just food, just as it’s wholly of this world yet also spiritual. This old dish—Hopis have been making piki since at least 1,500 years before the birth of Christ—is life’s connective tissue for this venerable lineage of humanity, whose name means “the peaceable people.” Piki is one reason this lineage has continued unbroken for so long. It links here-and-now with past and future, generations before with generations to come. Piki, its mysterious blue-gray color deepened by the use of culinary ash, is both everyday food and feast food. For the former, the thin batter-breads are formed into slightly more sturdy rolls, about ten to twelve inches long and two inches wide. These are eaten not with the bowl-scraping roughness we use for bread or tortillas (piki are far too delicate) but as an accompaniment to stews. For special feasts, celebrations, and ceremonies, the dough is made into folded piki, each about eight inches square.
Long before piki is rolled or folded, before the batter is even mixed up, the process begins: with a piki stone. Some piki stones, usually about three feet long by two feet wide and always of dense, flat basaltic or volcanic rock, have been in families for years.
Corn, the primary crop raised by these great
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