We
hope that you may join us this week at another flavorful Pathfinder Produce
market on Thursday afternoon at the Village Commons. We have some great
Village-grown items, and are open from 2 to 5 p.m. Our friendly community
produce market also now accepts MasterCard, Visa and Discover Cards!
****
My family is
reveling in the annual sweet corn harvest, enjoying fresh butter-and-sugar corn
on the cob several times a week. We never tire of it, and even the family
dog, Della, enjoys munching any ears that are leftover at the end of the
meal. It’s pretty funny to watch a lab hold corn between her paws and eat
off every last kernel.
Many of us now are also sending older children off to college or getting ready to send younger children to school. I now am looking through clothes, supplies and staples to figure out what needs "to go," what may be used for this academic year, and what should be purchased so my kids are “school ready.”
As I was reviewing my daughter’s used college textbooks, I came across one, The American Pageant by David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, which looked particularly inviting. History and science were always my favorite topics during school, and I still love reading about history, science, the history of science, or the science of history in most instances.
The book provides a comprehensive overview through 1877, and describes how early peoples crossed the Bering land bridge starting 35,000 years ago, populated North and South America, and splintered into various nomadic groups. About 5000 BCE, hunter-gatherers, sufficient in farming knowledge, cross bred varieties of grass into corn. This single development then led to the “foundation of the complex, large-scale, centralized Aztec and Incan civilizations.”
Over the next 3000 years, the growing of corn spread throughout the Americas, and by 1000 AD, tribes within the southern U.S. had developed “Three Sister farming” with corn, pole beans and winter squash growing together. According to Wikipedia, these crops benefit each other, as the corn provides a structure for the beans to climb. The beans build the soil by replacing nitrogen that the other plants use up (beans are legumes; this nitrogen-fixing action is common to all members of the legume family). The squash, with its plentiful and broad leaves, acts as a green mulch by blocking light and preventing weed growth, and helps retain soil moisture. The Iroquois and other northern groups often would add a fish or two to each planted mound, to help the young plants get started and thrive.
Nutritionally, these crops work together too, in as much as the beans provide protein and amino acids (lysine, tryptophan) that the corn lacks. To an extent, the crops could be stored through the non-growing months, and were important mainstays in native diets. According to Kennedy and Cohen, “The rich diet provided by this environmentally clever farming technique produced some of the highest population densities on the (North American) continent.”
How did native peoples develop this clever technique? It must have been through generations of women planting and tending crops, watching and experimenting with soil additives and different companion crops. There must’ve been many failures and empty bellies along the way as well. According to an academic paper on the topic, “The ‘How’ of the Three Sisters” by Amanda J. Landon, “Both humans and the Three Sisters now share a symbiotic relationship, where both the plants and the humans depend on one another;” the relationship through time has changed plant genetics and human behaviors.
Until next time, enjoy all of the sweet corn you can, and be well!
Many of us now are also sending older children off to college or getting ready to send younger children to school. I now am looking through clothes, supplies and staples to figure out what needs "to go," what may be used for this academic year, and what should be purchased so my kids are “school ready.”
As I was reviewing my daughter’s used college textbooks, I came across one, The American Pageant by David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, which looked particularly inviting. History and science were always my favorite topics during school, and I still love reading about history, science, the history of science, or the science of history in most instances.
The book provides a comprehensive overview through 1877, and describes how early peoples crossed the Bering land bridge starting 35,000 years ago, populated North and South America, and splintered into various nomadic groups. About 5000 BCE, hunter-gatherers, sufficient in farming knowledge, cross bred varieties of grass into corn. This single development then led to the “foundation of the complex, large-scale, centralized Aztec and Incan civilizations.”
Over the next 3000 years, the growing of corn spread throughout the Americas, and by 1000 AD, tribes within the southern U.S. had developed “Three Sister farming” with corn, pole beans and winter squash growing together. According to Wikipedia, these crops benefit each other, as the corn provides a structure for the beans to climb. The beans build the soil by replacing nitrogen that the other plants use up (beans are legumes; this nitrogen-fixing action is common to all members of the legume family). The squash, with its plentiful and broad leaves, acts as a green mulch by blocking light and preventing weed growth, and helps retain soil moisture. The Iroquois and other northern groups often would add a fish or two to each planted mound, to help the young plants get started and thrive.
Nutritionally, these crops work together too, in as much as the beans provide protein and amino acids (lysine, tryptophan) that the corn lacks. To an extent, the crops could be stored through the non-growing months, and were important mainstays in native diets. According to Kennedy and Cohen, “The rich diet provided by this environmentally clever farming technique produced some of the highest population densities on the (North American) continent.”
How did native peoples develop this clever technique? It must have been through generations of women planting and tending crops, watching and experimenting with soil additives and different companion crops. There must’ve been many failures and empty bellies along the way as well. According to an academic paper on the topic, “The ‘How’ of the Three Sisters” by Amanda J. Landon, “Both humans and the Three Sisters now share a symbiotic relationship, where both the plants and the humans depend on one another;” the relationship through time has changed plant genetics and human behaviors.
Until next time, enjoy all of the sweet corn you can, and be well!
Lori
