Knee high by the 4th of July

[Al_Smith]

I think okra and grits you about need to be raised up on to like them .Although my lady fair was raised up in Indianaplois and she likes grits but not okra .Okra Frence fried isn't bad but boiled is another story .

[Ron Scott]

Meals of Polenta were popular among the Italian families while I was growing up in Michigan's U.P.

[Southside]

Boiled Yukra?  Eh, no, I think I will just eat some dirt, thank you. 

[Don P]

And just to add to the grits/polenta stuff. I believe dent corn is popcorn x flint corn=dent corn, which is cornmeal and grits.

I prefer a grittier grit, I don't really care for cream of wheat or corn mush. I've been grinding and sifting the bran off with a 16 mesh screen and then have a screen colander that must be an 18 count or so. If I pass the cornmeal through the colander it gives finer cornmeal and clean grits. But if someone brings a polenta over we'll butcher it up and serve it on a bed of grits or off to the side all depending on the mood.

[Al_Smith]

A lot of uses for corn .The growing of same has really changed .In my youth it was really a task to get 100 bushels per acre now that's considered a low amount ..
Used to come off around mid November .Now it seems often times about the same time as the soy beans .Harvest time grain trucks are everywhere .Old days it might be a two row picker .Now it's big combines often with 16-18 foot headers and cost as much as a fine house . Doesn't take very long these days .Used to be a couple of weeks .

[Jeff]

Karn update. Itsacomin.

 

[tule peak timber]

Corn guard! ;D

[gspren]

I've always heard of "dent" corn as our common field corn, as when it's dry enough to pick each kernal will have a dent in the end.

[Raider Bill]

That's opposite from how I pick sweet corn. I don't want dents.

[Don P]

If you dry sweet corn it just gets apple headed doll crinkly  :D

I think all the "indian" corn and gem corn, the glossy multi colored corn, is popcorn of some type or another. it dries to a full round kernel.

You can grind any of it and get a useable meal. The rest is about taste. 
I went down for 200 lbs of corn yesterday and in a miscommunication the kid first rolled out with 4 sacks of yellow shelled corn. About then one of the guys heard my voice and knew what was up, I was there for white bread corn. He rolled out with that a minute later and said "this is what you were wanting  ".

I got home and the hundred 1 lb coffee bags I ordered had come. The kind with the poly liner, window and tin tie. They hold 1.5 lbs of meal which is 5 cups, ~3 batches of cornbread. And the test results came back. I passed the ServSafe cert for the state. That's $160 and a buncha toothpicks propping open eyeballs hours I won't get back  :D.

[Al_Smith]

Corn meal mush is another thing I think you need raised up on .However an alternative is to make it in a loaf pan and fry it .Not too bad that way .
Corn bread there must be a zillion ways to make it .I don't care for the crumbly stuff but corn meal muffins are pretty good .

[Don P]

I'm curious Al, you're north of me. I think I'm sitting on or very close to the Jiffy/ White Lily line of demarcation.... but I'm not sure, which corn meal muffins do you all buy?

When I rolled up the truck door yesterday I realized there's another way I can make the clean cops happy. I got hit by a blast of near sterilization heat. It would not take much more to kill anything that could be in the box.

[Al_Smith]

I think it's Jiffy corn muffin mix .I've never made corn bread,always had a woman do that .Actually three ladies and they all could make good corn bread  .I've used the muffin mix for breading pork chops and chicken .I keep it in the freeezer because once opened the meal  worm larva hatches from the eggs . The eggs are always there but they get baked and you never see them .
Actual corn meal I think both the white plus the yellow are Quacker .That stays in the refridgerator .

[Al_Smith]

Now then corn bread ,there must be a zillion ways to make .For example my deceased Dar I think used corn muffin mix blended with corn meal .She was born and raisied in Ohio but she had a lot of Tennessee  in her .It went real good with pinto beans and ham hocks ,northern soul food so to speak .

[tule peak timber]

Does anyone here have any experience with the Country Living Grain Mill? I've done a lot of reading and it is supposed to be a good quality unit for grinding grain.

[Don P]

Steel or stone? I'm curious what you end up with and how it does.

I had just put this up elsewhere but figured it was close enough it might be of interest here;

The quern was a simple 2 stone hand grinder that existed in England through all its ups and downs since about the time of Christ. It was used in every household to grind for their daily bread. When William the Conqueror took over in the late 1100's the land and everything on it became his. He parceled it out to his court and the church, they paid him rents and services and the tenants of the land paid their new landlords. In some cases the king granted the church land or property "in free alms" as a donation, and untaxable. That bit him in the rear and is the root of why churches are untaxed to the government to this day. One of the ways of "taxing" the farmers, after having taken a portion of their crop, and having to work on the landlords crop, was to require that they grind at the lord's banal mill. Banal in that time had another meaning, "compulsory". To force compliance the landlords sometimes collected the tenants quern stones. In the case of the Cirencester Abbey, the monks seized the tenants stones and paved the floor of the Abbey with them. The people had to walk on their grindstones in his house, that chafed more than a little. In 1381, the people marched in and took their floor back, good on em The abbey took the people to court, and won.

A poor tenant couldn't spare going to the landed lord's banal mill. They would roughly crush, pound, soak and cook coarse grain. Groton is the oldest word I've found for that from Bede. We know its offspring, groats and grits, a coarse ground grain. And I think, that's the rest of that story.

[tule peak timber]

It seems like those in power are always trying to squeeze the little guy. VERY interesting about the seizure of the stones and eventual resting place.

As far as which grinder; my tendency is towards the Country Living with the motor attachment. About $1,100. My wife says it is overkill for just the 2 of us, but besides having corn meal being one of the household staples, we're now looking at other grains such as spelt for its nutritional value as well as easier on the body to digest. It's amazing how the different wheats, with their processing, have crept into the food chain and become responsible for a host of minor ailments.

I reached out to several companies on the different grinders; stone vs. steel. Very few answered back. Not very good business. But I am still studying. 


We had a wind event here yesterday that knocked down several of the corn stalks. So, I harvested some of the immature Floriani ears and I am going to cook with them tonight. They're formed up and just starting to turn red, but definitely immature. Raw and chewed off the cob they are dry and not like sweet corn at all. I am going to slice off the kernels with a knife and stew them with some chopped chicken and herbs for sort of a goulash tonight. A pic attached of the almost mature ears.