My friend Karl is “unique”, that’s a person who is genuinely “one of a kind”. Two friends and I found ourselves at table last evening with this most interesting man. We were in the midst of a power outage, which no doubt set the stage, with flickering candles everywhere. Remnants of his former life in Morocco were in evidence everywhere: nice Oriental rugs, large hammered brass vessels, smaller brass candlesticks, rustic light fixtures and other useful items.

Karl lives on a couple hundred acres in a hand hewn house in the mid coast area of Maine, set well back from the road, with a horse, a goat, and several chickens. If you listen carefully while outside, you can hear a lively stream tumbling over rocks nearby. It’s quiet inside, nice and toasty, too, thanks to a couple of big wood fired stoves, and the house smells great, like sautéed onions and good earth. Not like my house in a power outage…chilly and with no way to cook. This level of “off the grid” comfort really got me thinking.

Before reaching the front door and all those great smells, a series of large garden plots must be negotiated. Herein is the source of all Karl’s great cooking. He is a vegetarian and grows all manner of leafy greens: all his own potatoes, onions, cole crops, corn, apples, berries, tomatoes, buckwheat, teas, and herbs …and a type of special corn called “yellow dent” corn, also called “field corn” or “flint” corn, made for drying and grinding into masa-like preparations. Very similar to posole in Mexican cooking or hominy here at home. In short, literally everything Karl eats is grown in his “dooryard”, save a trip to the health food store for coffee and dairy now and then.

It’s this corn that I found so interesting and delectable. Getting it to the edible stage takes a couple of days of soaking in wood ash, rinsing, and then several hours of cooking on the wood fired stove top. Eventually it gets ground up with a grain grinder to where it can be fashioned into corn cakes, crepes, or stir fried with onions and tamari soy sauce. Or it may be used whole once it’s cooked and softened, like the hominy we know in a can. It seems that the soaking in the wood ash water, containing potassium hydroxide, releases or frees up the niacin in the corn, making the corn quite nutritious, offering a wide range of B vitamins, lots of vitamin A, and a full complement of minerals. Pickling lime can also be used but if you burn wood anyway, it makes sense to use the ash.

We were treated to two different preparations, a corn crepe and a corn stir fry with onion, both delicious and hearty. This was accompanied by a rocket salad with umeboshi vinaigrette, freshly steamed brussels sprouts, winter squash, and a trio of raw heritage apples for dessert.

There was much discussion of spirituality around the table and I had a moment, in Karl’s calm presence, believing that I was in conversation with Carlos Castaneda or a similar Mexican shaman. It occurred to me that if I did share food with someone like that, this meal might be exactly what I would be served: corn cakes, beans, or vegetables and squash.

I left feeling uber-nourished, light, and healthy…feeling… well… divine.

To honor Karl’s commitment to vegetarianism, here is a new recipe for your arsenal. Most of us will go to the store for a few cans of posole or whole hominy to use in this recipe, and that’s OK. Not everyone can be Karl.

image: idealdietrecipes.com Continue reading “Dinner with a Mystic: Vegetarian Posole Stew” »