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amaranth
Sept 30, 2015 16:52:44 GMT -5
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Post by ilex on Sept 30, 2015 16:52:44 GMT -5
Amaranth can be absolutely delicious. I plant a red one, I think people accept it better. Now I get redish amaranth all over the place. It crosses very easily.
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Post by steev on Sept 30, 2015 18:34:31 GMT -5
Someday, I must eat amaranth as a cooked grain; I've only had it as "alegria", sort of Mexican "crackerjack", a very pleasant snack.
The Spanish colonizers tried to root it out of indigenous Meso-American culture, largely because the Aztecs mixed popped amaranth with blood from sacrificial victims as a sort of sacrament (and a valuable dietary boost, in a relatively protein-deficient diet); the good Padres of the Church found that "blood/bread" thing intolerable, cutting much too close to the bone, so they did what they could to stamp the crop out, in the name of the One True Religion.
Amaranth cultivation survived in the mountainous boondocks, where the good Padres and Conquistadores didn't go much, emerging as "alegria", popped amaranth bound with cane-caramel (I think).
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