Mother Grains

The foundation of societies since the dawn of agriculture, grains become food only through human care. Esopus, European, and African people each had their own primary grains and growing methods.

Maize

Also known as flint corn, maize arrived in this area about a thousand years ago, carried along ancient trade routes from the lands now called Mexico. Skilled botanists developed it into hundreds of locally adapted varieties. Maize anchored life across the seasons. Esopus families grew lunxwaskwiim or flint corn in fields co-planted with pole beans, sunflowers, and squash

Though long-storing and packed with energy, flint corn must be nixtamalized, a labor-intensive process that makes its nutrients available to the body by grinding and boiling it in a solution of hardwood ash, then washing it with clean water and pounding it in a large mortar and pestle.

Wheat 

The Europeans’ king of grains, wheat’s fine flour provided bread, a daily staple. Wheat doubled as money, used to settle accounts and trade for other goods. As an export commodity, it was also in high demand to feed a growing Europe and people enslaved in the Caribbean. The valley’s European families built wealth by exploiting Indigenous and enslaved African labor for planting, hoeing, and harvesting wheat.

Missing Ingredient: Sorghum 

West and West Central Africans grew sorghum as a staple grain. Like wheat, it must be hoed, stacked, and dried during harvest. Like corn, it requires extensive processing to remove its tough hulls. Africans here likely translated this knowledge to processing their enslavers’ corn and wheat.

Processing Grain to Flour 

The rich fertile lands along the Hudson River and its tributaries like the Wallkill and the Rondout once served as the breadbasket for New York. From the mid-1600s to the early 1800s, grains like wheat and rye were grown in New Paltz in great abundance thanks largely to the exploitation of enslaved Africans.