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Post by maicerochico on Nov 8, 2015 19:00:17 GMT -5
Back in 2013 I crossed two southwestern corns in order to get a "morado" type adapted to temperate latitudes. The parents were Blue Fox (Ames 22778) and Apache Red Cob Selection (PI 213730). The seeds that I sowed were blue, and all the ears came out cherry-red. I made my first batch of chicha morada from it yesterday and was quite pleased with the results. I figured that I would share the pictures with everybody on Homegrown Goodness. s1159.photobucket.com/user/Maicerochico/library/Homemade%20Chicha%20Morada?sort=3&page=1(Let me know if y'all can actually see the photos in the link.)
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Post by flowerweaver on Nov 8, 2015 19:14:59 GMT -5
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Post by maicerochico on Nov 8, 2015 20:08:34 GMT -5
Thanks. The drink wasn't as darkly colored as Peruvian batches, but that's not surprising given the degree to which Andean morado corns have been selected for anthocyanin levels. With three or four cycles of heavy selection, one could probably stabilize a line from my hybrid that has color comparable to tropical morado types. I don't have the time for it though.
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Post by DarJones on Nov 8, 2015 22:23:16 GMT -5
Send a few seed out and see if anyone can work with it. I'd be willing to give it a grow and see what shows up.
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Post by blueadzuki on Nov 9, 2015 15:20:42 GMT -5
One of the corn ears I found last year has enough anthocyanins to make a weak-ish chicha morado (actually given the color I get, Chicha Rosado might be a more appropriate designation ) Theoretically I also have that really old ear of deep purple Andean mountain corn, but even assuming I could get it to grow and reproduce (long long odds with any Andean corn) the fact that it IS a mountain type cancha probably means it would be a bad choice for any such beverage, since the kernels of most mountain types have loose enough starch and large enough air pockets they actually float; bad thing if you are trying to get as much color out of them as you can. And every morada recipe I have seen says to keep the kernels (and indeed the ears) whole ) Actually, I wonder if ANY sufficiently darkly pericarped corn would work as well, i.e. if a corn actually needs to be any part morada to do morada. Beyond the sheer amounts of it, is there anything significantly different in the anthocyanin makeup of morada versus any other corn? Not to disparage yours or anyone work in trying to bring such corns north, but given that darkly pericarped corns are available in pretty much ALL corn populations, I'm wondering if this is one case where we are making the job harder than it has to be. I also may have a few sweet kernels in my sweet bottle with morada coloring, you never know. Actually, I imagine there could be some very fun things you could do with a sweetcorn that had the morada pericarp. For one thing, it would probably be a GREAT thing to have if you wanted to make a hybrid chichi (purpled like morada, fermented like standard) Maybe with sweet kernels you could get around the step when you have to chew some of the corn up and spit it into the mix (to get some amylase in to start breaking down the starch.)
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Post by DarJones on Nov 11, 2015 2:41:07 GMT -5
Morado types have the hp gene which dramatically increases anthocyanin expression. It is highly unlikely that your colored varieties carry hp.
I have some Morado type corn that needs to be grown. The pigmentation is beyond belief it is so intense.
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Post by blueadzuki on Nov 11, 2015 15:45:25 GMT -5
Well, the odds are pretty reasonable the mountain one DOES have it, since it is basically from the area where it would be common (for all I know what I have is in fact the kind of morada you use if you are up in the highlands where the Andean mountain type corns grow), As for the others, I can only say that the one I tested did make a fluid that looked like morada when boiled, if rather paler, since like the one macerichico got, it's cherry, not purple (at least I think it's the same color, I've always described the one I had as deep fuchsia) and smelled like it (I didn't taste it since it was being done from the primary cob I had bought as Indian corn, which might have had who knows what pesticides and preservatives sprayed on it.) What that counts for, I'll leave up to others interpretation. And since I have no plans to plant the mountain type currently (partly because I'm too far north for Andean, mostly because I want to keep the ear intact as a refercene for how the ears of Andean type corns are put together) and I don't have enough of the other one left to go sharing (maybe a dozen or so kernels) It's probably academic anyway.
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Post by reed on Nov 11, 2015 17:41:38 GMT -5
I saw this post this morning and got curious so I put some kernels of my red corn in a bowl. Here it is about 12 hours later. Chicha Rosa? I guess it gets darker if you boil it? It is just the kernels soaked in water but it has a little bit of flavor, noting really good but not bad either. Maybe a little more concentrated and with the other ingredients it might be good. Perhaps next year I'll have enough to find out. blueadzuki, do you mean they use the cobs too?
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Post by blueadzuki on Nov 11, 2015 18:00:10 GMT -5
Actually yes, they often do. A lot of Morada recipes have you stick the whole ear in, cob and all. Husks too, sometimes.
But all I was referring to with the mountain is that that is why I don't want to actually try and plant it. That ear is actually the last remaining one from a cache of Andean ears I found about ten or so years ago in a bodega in NYC (being sold as Indian corn by a Korean store owner who had obviously inherited the stock and didn't know the difference.) The ears in my profile photo came from the same cache. Most of those ears are long since planted and gone. But I kept the purple one. It was the only one that was purple, the closest any of the others got to that was some chinmarked and tannish (a few of the tan having a simplified version of the pattern I refer to as "fletcha de pavo"). Since at the time I was mostly interested in those kernels with speckling or with purple aleurone (since a few of the purple aleuroned kernels in the cache actually had purple endosperm as well.) I though the ear wouldn't be much use (since you can't actually see anything under the pericarp* And it thought it would be useful to keep one ear intact anyway as a reference piece as to what Andean corn ears looked like.
Actually very little of the flavor of Chicha morada comes from the actual corn. That's why you add the apples, the pineapple and the spices, to make the stuff palatable. When I do the professional version (with the morada you buy in bags) what I get tastes sort of like mulled cranberry juice.
Actually, that's pretty close to the color the real stuff gets. Though you are correct, boiling it will pull more color out.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 12, 2015 14:13:51 GMT -5
Here is a photo of deep purple anthocyanin water i made from from only purple corn husks a few years back.
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Post by steev on Nov 12, 2015 19:45:49 GMT -5
It would be interesting to know what the nutritional content of that water was; prolly a tad spendy to have such fully analyzed.
I'm gratified to see that my spellcheck no longer underlines "prolly"; mush-mouth is becoming standard English!
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 13, 2015 0:45:34 GMT -5
It would be interesting to know what the nutritional content of that water was; prolly a tad spendy to have such fully analyzed. I'm gratified to see that my spellcheck no longer underlines "prolly"; mush-mouth is becoming standard English! No idea, but while there was practically no flavor or sweetness it did ferment when i left it in the fridge. I found that to be quite interesting. Since i didn't add any sugar to it i assume the plant sugars were the ones fermenting. That year i had some corn smut, so i do sometimes wonder if the Ustilago maydis was the culprit behind the fermenting process. Ustilago maydis has been reported to have higher infection rates on high-anthocyanin corn. However it could have been anerobic bacteria producing methanol, but i dont know enough about plant chemistry to know if that's what it was. Either way i think there could be many uses of the stuff if i were to make it again. There have been cases of people using purple cabbage or beet water to boil ravioli or other pasta to get red/purple pasta! I've yet to try it though.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Nov 13, 2015 1:13:20 GMT -5
Noodles boiled in purple cabbage water are a nice acid-base indicator. A little vinegar and you get pink noodles. A little baking soda and they turn blue. It's a fun party trick, and particularly effective with clear bean noodles.
I'm not sure, but I'd guess that it would work with the pigment from the corn.
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