Grinder for corn meal

[Rick]

I'd like to start having corn meal for breakfast occasionally. I'm hoping Whole Foods carries whole grain organically grown corn (though with genetic contamination of easily-blown pollen I'm not sure any corn in this country can really be considered organic any more), but can anyone recommend a grain mill I can use to grind corn? I don't need flour, but just a course meal will be fine.

[Nancy]

charnes,

A nice big, rough hewn, stone, Molcajete Dish, with pestle does the job. Readily available at Hispanic groceries.

Nancy

[Rick]

Thanks, Nancy -- know of any specific stores in the Boston area?

[Nancy]

charnes,

As I live in the West, Mexican food and peoples are a part of the culture here. Don't know the digs in Boston. Any Mexican groceries? A large 7" diameter stone Molcajete sells here at Sak n Sav, many great Mexican eats...great prices...for only about $7.

Otherwise, for grinding, there is the good old macrobiotic standby...the Surabachi. Available where macrobiotic foods are sold, good health food stores, also available by mail order. Try the Kushi store.

A Surabachi is a large clay/ceramic bowl with ridges for grinding, usually with a wooden pestle, sold seperately.

Nancy

[Rick]

Thanks much, I have a suribachi that I use for gomasio but I can't imagine that it could reasonably grind something so hard as dried corn kernels. Do you have a strong sense that it would be adequate for corn?

[Nancy]

charnes,

I think the Molcajete Dish is best. Come to think of it you could figure a flat or curved stone base and stone grinder from natural materials. Very stone age, no? I'm one for jerry-rigging all kinds of things.

Nancy

[Bruce Paine]

Rick,

According to Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Siegal in their Mexican Food For Dummies http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Dumm...764551698.html, a molcajete is a black grinding stone made of basalt used to grind spices and guacamole.

Though the molcajete that is made from basalt may be limited to grinding those softer ingredients, apparently there are molcajetes http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/mortarp...ere%20to%20buy made of stronger materials that can be used to grind foods as tough as corn.

Traditionally, though, the metate http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjsal...mages/azwo.gif http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjsal...images/pat.gif has been used by many mesoamerican cultures like the Aztecs and the Mayas to grind corn but they first softened the kernels overnight with lime or ashes to make nixtamal or what we might call hominy and then grouund up the softened maize on the metate to make masa that was and still is used to make tortillas, sopes, chalupes, gorditas, picadas, taquitos (tacos), and tamales to name a few.

Metate grinding stones are hard to find in Boston, so I suggest if you want one soon, you shop for it on the Internet.

If you don't care what materials are involved in the grinding of your corn, you can get a variety of grinders including: metal grinding mills, mills that have caborundum stones, and mills that are made from granite or other tough stones.

The Corona Grain Mill http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW usually comes with metal plates but you can attach a couple of carborundum stones to get a cooler ground grain.

There are a great variety of manual and electric grain mills out there and for starters I suggest checking out this site: http://www.discountnaturalfoods.com/shopnew/mills.html.

I've owned both a manual stone mill http://www.miracleexclusives.com/Sam...tone_Mill.html and an electric stone mill http://www.miracleexclusives.com/Sam...tone_Mill.html and I feel that they are great investments if you can afford them.

The choices are yours.

Muchos gracias,

Bruce Paine

[Rick]

Bruce -- thanks VERY much for this detailed reply. Why do I have the awkward feeling that I'm the only Yanqui in the United States who is currently considering grinding corn into meal for home use? Is it such a lost art, even among the macro community? Back in the 70s when I was living in a Kushi house we were ALL grinding grain...

I am inclining towards getting an electric mill but I want to make sure I can get a course ground -- this is NOT for bread or muffins but for cereal.

But I'm definitely intrigued by the molcajete or metate idea: all things being equal (which I guess they rarely are!) I'd prefer the low-tech traditional way. But where in heaven's name does one gets lime (I can get some wood-ash from my fireplace I guess!) -- and most of all, how do you add it to the corn mix?

I wonder if using an electric mill, and therefore having the hard husk sufficiently broken down, negates having to use lime or wood ash.

I feel like I'm on new and uncharted territory (though like many of these things it's territory that's simply been LOST...)

[Bruce Paine]

Maybe, everyone is secretly grinding corn but just not telling anyone else about it!

My guessis that many macros are just eating organic polenta, organic frozen corn (defrosted and then cooked), and organic fresh corn in season.

One of the few Yanqui possesors of Ignacio and Loretto Beaumonte Wayas' Man of Corn: Native* American Cooking with Corn, I've been interested in getting more people interested in the traditional *mesoamerican foods based on nixtamal and masa.

I don't remember a grain mill in use at Dudley Road back in those days.

I started baking natural leavened bread in Chapel Hill back in 76 but didn't start grinding flour until 77 and really got into it in San Francisco in 1980 following classes that I took with Jacques de Langre at a macro center there, run by Paul and Monique Miksis.

You might first get a manual grinder and then later, if you want, get the electric.

Grinding grain by hand doubles the benefit but electric is very convenient.

Get your slaked lime here: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/pDetail.asp?p=155 and follow these instructions: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/masa.htm

Also, I highly recommend both Betty Fussell's The Story of Corn [url]http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/pDetail.asp?i=5&p=474[/url and also Rebecca Wood's THE SPLENDID GRAIN: Robust Recipes for Grains with Vegetables, Fish, Poultry, Meat & Fruit http://rwood.com/Bookshelf/sg.htm to broaden your understanding of that "quintessential" crop and contribute to more varieties of methods of preparing it.

Muchos gracias,

Bruce Paine

[Rick]

Bruce, I've just ordered Betty Fussell's The Story of Corn -- it seems right up my alley. Thanks for the tip. My current interest in finding a grinder to make corn grits is making me think -- what were native Americans here in New England eating before the arrival of the colonists? It seems that we should be following at least SOME of their dietary habits. Were they growing corn here? Anyone know of where I can read more on this subject?

Do you think whole corn grits and meal such as Arrowhead Mills that are available in natural food stores (as well as what I would produce once I get my grinder!) does not yield optimum nutrition since the phytates in the skin will interfere with essential mineral absorption?

[garymill]

Hi Rick and All,

Overall most of our customers nowadays tend to buy from us an impact type of mill since all they are concerned with is grinding flour, an impact mill would be of the type like the K-TEC Kitchen Mill. This type of mill is reasonably priced at $159.00 http://www.juicersforless.com/produc...oducts_id/1604

The impact mill type can literally make the finest flour, but the drawback is that it can not really create flour that is coaser than polenta for example.

In the cases where a customer needed a mill that could grind both coarsely and fine, we would have to reccomend something like the the WolfGang Flour Mill which is very nicely crafted of wood, even though it is our entry level model of this type, it is $289 and obviously out of budget for many people.

More recently a customer asked us about carrying the Family Grain Mill. After looking into this mill, it did seem to have very good capabilites, we acquired all the info on it, but just had not added it to our web site, I have just added it in a few combinations as of right now.

http://www.juicersforless.com/advanc...s=family+grain

You will see that you can order it in a manual configuration for $88.00, for $178.00 you receive both a electric motor base along with a manual hand base so it can be used either way. Also the mill has a modular design so you can purchase other attachments to use with it like an oat flaker. So for example if you ordered it as a package with the motor base, grain mill and flaker attachment, someone in your household could make mill flour for making bread with the electric base, while someone else could make rolled oats with the manual hand base. The mill can also grind herbs, and some beans too.

By the way, Bruce had mentioned the Coronna gain mill. We do sell something very similar to that, the Miracle ME150 http://www.juicersforless.com/produc...products_id/99
To be honest, right before Y2K, we were selling a great deal of these mills, nowadays not many at all. In researching mills, I ran accross a web site where someone tested a bunch of different mills and felt that the Family Grain Mill was best for bread flour, but the texture of the flour produced by the Coronna was just horrible.

I hope this info is helpful to you. Yes we besides having CyberMacro with the forums etc, also sell products like natural foods, pressure cookers, and grain mills, but I generally do not use the forums to make direct advertisements for them as I am doing in this case in answer to Rick's question on the grain mill. But these web sites do support CyberMacro, so if you have not taken a look at our other web sites selling natural foods and cookware please do, www.discountnaturalfoods.com www.qualitynaturalfoods.com www.juicersforless.com


Thanks,

Gary