In the 1520s, the Spanish conqueror Cortes banned amaranth from Aztec civilization. Now, the University of Missouri's Rob Myers wants to make it hip again.
And not only hip. He would like it to be grown in the Midwest. Maybe even in your own backyard.
Amaranth is an ancient grain, a grain that has not changed much over the last several hundred years. Cortes' banishment of the plant _ it may have been used in rituals involving the Aztec religion, which he sought to eradicate _ is its first known mention in written history, but discoveries in caves suggest it has been used by humans for 6,000 years.
Closer to home, archaeologists have found amaranth used in Missouri about 1,000 years ago, but Myers said we do not know if it was grown here or whether it came here through trade.
Myers, a faculty member in plant sciences at the University of Missouri and the regional director of extension programs, is interested in amaranth because it is versatile, highly nutritious and can be grown just about anywhere.
National attention focused on the grain in the 1970s, when magazine publisher Robert Rodale took an interest in it. He had the staff on his research farm in Pennsylvania look into it, and he promoted it in some of his magazines. Universities started looking into the grain, and they continued the work after Rodale's 1970 death in a car accident in Russia.
But amaranth is coming into its own now, Myers said, because of the "explosion in the gluten-free trend, and also the interest in ancient grains" such as quinoa, millet and buckwheat.
Pepperidge Farm makes a sandwich bread with amaranth in it, part of a 15-grain bread. Nabisco uses it in an ancient-grain variation on their Wheat Thins called Good Thins. Target stores sell a dinosaur-shaped cracker called Puffed Ancient Grain Dino Snack ("I guess they equate ancient grains with dinosaurs," Myers said with a chuckle).
And Blue Buffalo even has a dog food that is made with amaranth and quinoa. You know, for hipster dogs.
But despite its use in this country, amaranth is not grown here in significant amounts. Some farms did grow it for a while, but commercial interest in it waned when the price of corn and soybeans went up.
But corn and soybeans now fetch lower prices, and Myers thinks amaranth is the right crop to grow.
The amaranth that comes into the United States now comes mostly from India and Mexico, with some also arriving from South America. But Myers has recently developed two varieties specifically to grow in the Midwest; he is releasing Crimson Glow this winter and will come out with Golden Glow next year.
Ten years' of cross-breeding created the varieties that are resistant to drought, like the one we had last summer. They stand up well during harvest (some varieties flop over), and they can be harvested with existing equipment.
They also happen to be gorgeous.
"That was one of the unexpected benefits. I wasn't necessarily setting out to develop a variety that was more colorful," he said.
The color comes from small flowers that absolutely cover the top foot or so of the plant (which can grow to be 6 or 7 feet tall, or even taller). The flowers can be made into a dye, but it is the seeds inside the flowers that Myers finds most compelling.
A single plant will yield as many as 10,000 tiny seeds. Some people pop the seeds like popcorn on a hot skillet, and they can also be puffed by companies that use them in cereal products. But their most common use, probably, is being ground into flour.
Amaranth flour has no gluten, and gluten is needed to make bread rise, so one part of amaranth flour should be mixed with three parts wheat to make bread that rises nicely, Myers said. Or the seeds can be kept whole and cooked into a porridge.
Myers recommends that home gardeners grow amaranth for its beauty; it does well in pots and raised beds. If you want to cook with the seeds, which you can buy at many online seed retailers, a 4-by-4-foot plot would yield enough to experiment with for a couple of meals. If you want to grow enough to make a few loaves of bread, a 10-by-10-foot plot would be needed.
He didn't say how much it would take to make dog food.
