Why Mexican Chefs, Farmers And Activists Are Reviving The Ancient Grain Amaranth
The nutritious indigenous plant is part of a movement to revive native crops and cuisines — and a means of restoring the health and economy of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states.
On a sunny Friday morning in San Pablo Huitzo, a town in the Valles Centrales region of Oaxaca, Mexico, a half-dozen women are gathered for a workshop on making alegrías, a healthy, granola bar-like snack made with popped amaranth seeds. Their ingredient list is short: water, honey, raisins, a form of raw cane sugar known as piloncillo, and lime juice.
"The trick," explains the event's gracious host, Maria Lopez, "is to get the syrup to the right temperature" before adding the tiny orbs of amaranth, each barely bigger than a grain of coarse sand.
This could be any chatty gathering of neighborhood cooks in any kitchen in the world, except that in Oaxaca, amaranth is not
