2 November 2009 by
Jean Johnson
After the Sixties in Flagstaff where better to go and chill out than Indian County. Call me lucky. I managed to cobble together an education degree and spent the next decade out on Navajo and Hopi posing as a school teacher. It’s true, I arrived looking for smoke and feathers–the romance of Indian spirituality. But what I found was the women and their kitchens–and a corn cuisine to write home about. Scarcity really can bring out the best in our creativity and ingenuity.
Bob and his wife, Beth, still live down on the big pink Colorado Plateau along with my ex and the old crowd. Last year he sent up a lid of blue corn meal along with some seed. So here you be: a recipe for blue corn waffles. And because when I lived up on Second Mesa we used to have a skillet of fried red chile in the center of the table to dip and dab in, that recipe’s below. Both measure free, of course. No room–or need–for Big Cooking here. After all, precise measurements and prescriptive step-by-step directions is hardly the Hopi Way–or mine.
Blue Corn Waffles
These waffles aren’t traditional with the Hopi even though the tribe is known for its blue corn
cuisine. I made them after hipster and gardener from Northern Arizona, Bob Goforth, sent up a lid of blue corn flour plus a handful of seeds to keep the circle turning. Thanks, Bob. What a cool way to “feed your head.” ~White Rabbit, Surrealistic Pillow, Grace Slick, 1967.
Recipe Note
Whisk an egg, milk, shot of oil, and polite slug of vinegar together.Stir in blue corn flour leavened with soda and seasoned with salt and red chile flakes.Bake in an oiled waffle iron.
Details
~Vinegar fizzes with the soda to lighten these waffles, and the red chile gives them serious la-la. Make your batter thick enough to spoon into the waffle iron since it’s mainly batters that are too thin that tend to stick.
~If you aren’t into making waffles, do feel free to turn these into pancakes or cornbread. They’re all family. Or you can do like Bob did and make blue corn flour crepes. I tried these too, and they smelled like the Southwest after a thunderstorm.
Source: Hippie Kitchen: A Measure Free Vegetarian Cookbook, p 130
I also included the bits below as side bars in Hippie Kitchen. Basically tips on waffles, working with cornmeal, and Hopi memories.
On Avoiding
Sticky Wicket Waffles—
I’ve dug my share of failed waffles out of the little square indentations. That was back when I didn’t oil the iron nicely with a pastry brush, and more critically, when I used too much liquid in the batter. It’s true that sometimes I can get by with a thin batter that results in the cracker-like, crispy waffles, but the safest bet until you get your sea legs is to go with a thicker than thinner batter, something akin to thinned mashed potatoes. At one point in my waffle making, I thought milk products made things stick, but I never got very scientific about it and can’t really say it wasn’t because those batters were simply too thin.
The main thing is that making waffles isn’t as much of trip as I used to think. Plus, they’re better than pancakes because there’s no possibility of doughy middles. Sort of like the difference between baking a cake in a regular pan and a Bundt pan—the indentation in the center helps the cake cook through.
Finally, on the horror of lifting the lid and finding your lovely waffle pulled apart and clinging to the top and the bottom. Never fear. All it takes—given that your batter was thick enough—is closing the iron and letting the heat finish doing its thing. In another minute or two, the miraculous will have happened. The waffle will be waiting under the lid in one dazzlingly fabulous piece.
On a Roll with
Blue & Yellow Corn—
It goes without saying that you can substitute yellow for blue cornmeal and still rock. You can also easily turn waffle batter into pancakes or cornbread. The gist here is to make pancake batters thinner that waffle batters so they pour onto a griddle easily and aren’t too thick to cook through. On the cornbread route, follow the lead of your waffle batter, augmenting it with whole wheat pastry flour, a little honey, and another egg or two. That way you’ll get a moist cornbread plus leftovers to toast into croutons and toss into to Bourbon Chard Ribbons (page 134).
Most recipes that use cornmeal—whether for waffles, pancakes, or bread—call for at least part wheat flour and sometimes I go that route. Mainly, though, I like to explore what happens with 100 percent cornmeal and have found I can control how well what I’m making holds together with the amount of oil and eggs I use.
On Leavening—
I remember a novel set in the early 1800s in which the older women criticized the young marrieds for using the new quick leavenings. It was just one line, but it’s stayed with me. The idea of how little the old guard thought of the young moderns and their penchant for being in such a hurry they couldn’t wait for yeast to work. There’s not a reason other than time that you couldn’t use yeast to make Blue Corn Waffles, using a ratio of a teaspoon of yeast softened in warm water for every cup of dry ingredients. But what can we say; we get more biz-biz all the time it seems and want things on the double.
Sodas can leave an off taste in quick breads if you goof and use too much, which is one reason so many recipes call for baking powder. But as my all time favorite cookbook, Laurel’s Kitchen, points out, you can make your own aluminum-free baking power using one part soda to two parts cream of tartar. Frankly, whenever I have some of this made up I use it instead of straight soda. But I can be a very lazy hippie cook. Besides, isn’t it the Irish that use nothing but soda in their famous bread?
On Blue Corn—
I still remember the time after I’d moved from Hopiland home to Flagstaff. It was back in our rafting days and someone wanted to take some blue corn meal along on a trip down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. So I called Alfreda out on Second Mesa.
“How can we get some blue corn for the river trip?” I asked.
Her answer? “Grow it.”
Tough love from a Hopi woman for sure.
I arched my middle class brow and thought, “Forget it.”
The times, though, they really did change. This season I’ll be sowing the blue corn kernels Bob sent along with slew of other things. Perhaps not the big time thrills of a romp through the Grand but an experience sure to bring its own enduring joy.
Fried Red Chile, Hopi-Style
With a skillet of fried chile in the center of the table, people can dip in as they eat, spearing a bit of chile and swirling whatever else is on their fork in the warm oil. If you’re at a Hopi table expect things like pork chops, hard boiled eggs, and little corn dumplings called blue marbles. If you’re at an Anglo table you might find yourself dipping salmon or even—as Susan Isaacs sensibly did—simply spooning up some of the chile and oil to season the rice on your plate.
Know that if you do try dipping into the common pot, Hopi manners require that each person stay in their own corner of the pan. It’s rather like the Columbia tribes’ salmon fishing philosophy: “I fish on this side. You fish on that side. Nobody fish in the middle.”
Recipe Note
Use long dried red chile like guajillos or Anaheims. First break off the hot core ends and shake out most of the equally hot seeds. Then break the chiles into four or five nice pieces and fry them in a half inch of medium hot oil, turning them for even browning.
Use a small, heavy-bottomed skillet that will go to the table nicely. Trying a test piece in the pan is a smart move because you want the oil hot enough to crisp and darken the chile without burning it, something that can easily happen if you’re not paying attention.
Source: Cooking Beyond Measure: How to Eat Well without Formal Recipes, p. 81
–Note: I just made this again the other day. Damn good. Really.
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