Carol Deppe on Corn (Audio Interview)

Thanks Jim Phillips for being such a great interviewer!

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Topics in order:

why to grow it (7m); hand crank corn sheller; corn types and how to tell (11.30m); which types of corn to use for what: 2 basic types: flint and flour, dent is an intermediate corn, flint good for boiling or steaming, flour good for baking, pure flint makes great polenta - grind into coarse grind, toss in butter, 3 vol of water, a little salt, boil for 7min, leave for 45min, can bake with either flint corn (wet-batter), for tortillas, you need floury consistency, can make good corn bread out any with wet batter, dent is only good for wet-batter corn bread or tortillas, stays away from dent corn (14.30); within the basic categories, the colors are representative of the flavors! a red flint corn will taste a lot like another red flint corn, but not necessarily like a red flour corn (20m); "we are essentially eating the waste products of the animal industry" (21m); more on Italian-style polenta made with dent corns, work you don't have to do if using flint corn (24.30); the process of turning commodity corn into something that tastes good; flint corns the ultimate survival crop (26m); thoughts on grinders - hand versus electric (26.30m); how to get good binding in corn meal dough for bread (37m); info on keeping corn pure, including early corn won't cross-pollinate easily (43m); story of the Mandans and Hidatsu Native Americans first meeting (50m); parching corn (53m); parching corn & backpacking (60m)' her spring seed business, a cool 5-color, 5-tastes single corn for seed saving (68m); low yields of Native American corn but no fertilizer, spacing of industrial corn vs. sustainable corn (74m); industrial hybrids spaced 8" apart in rows 18" apart, tons of fertilizer, not practical (75.30m); Carol Deppe's spacing for early corn: rows 3.5 feet apart, thins from plants every 3-5" in-row, will thin to about 8-12" apart average, but if two nice plants just 5-6" apart next to wimpy-looking plants, will leave the pair and give them more space on the either side, low yields but still get more than any other grain; (76m); why not to thin at 2" inches high but rather 4", even better if she can let it get bigger without being crowded (if spaced far enough apart) (79m); how she breeds for max genetic heterogeneity for max adaptability in her seeds (81m)

NPR Interview with Betty Fussel on cooking corn perfectly.

Corn a major part of homemade chicken layer feeds. Another good article.

Other Tools: Quaker City Grain Mill, and more! Get a hand crank that you can attach to a bike or a motor.