Amaranth--The Bread of the Aztecs and Mayans

Dale Baranowski

Amaranth was the principle grain of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and quite suited for wet Central America as it grows well in humid climates.  In contrast, wheat and barley need a wet season to start the growth cycle and a dry period before harvest.  Wheat would rot in Central America because the climate would prevent it from drying out.

Amaranth seed is a tiny round seed, less than half the size of a head of a pin and the domesticated variety is beige in color.   There is a wild variety that is quite common in our area in the Judean Heights area and produces black seed.

I was given a small quantity of amaranth seed to experiment with, no more than ¼ teaspoon, and I prepared a section of bed in my vegetable garden that was one meter square and broadcast the seed over that area. (Now one may ask how it’s possible to distribute ¼ teaspoon of such material more or less equally over a meter-square area, and I’ll answer that it’s literally childsplay.  Simply take a bucket, add a coupla hands full of beach sand along with the seed and mix well.  Then broadcast the sand over the requisite area and the seed will go with it.)  I turned over the soil lightly.  With frequent watering the amaranth plants grew, and grew, and GREW.  By the end of summer we had a stand of amaranth, many of those plants were taller than my 6-foot frame.  The tops of the plants were crowned with a large red-maroon flower, a flower that was composed of fine fringes that resembled a the old-fashioned feather boas that were popular among the upper crust in the early part of the last century.  Some might remember a flower that was popular in US gardens in the ‘70s called the ‘cock’s comb’.  This was a small plant that produced a feathery flower that produced flowers that had very intense orange, yellow-green or red colors.  The cock’s comb was a variety of amaranth developed into a showy ornamental.  Anyway, the flowers on this variety of amaranth were huge and ranged from 20-30 cm in length and weighed at least a kilogram and the main trunk of the amaranth is thick and fibrous and well suited to hold such a heavy flower.   The flowers remained their dull red for several weeks, then one day I bumped a flower and noticed that the seeds fell from that flower in abundance.  They didn't just fall out of the flower, bumping the plant caused it to rain seeds!  At that point I cut off all the flowers from that one square meter stand of amaranth and scattered the flowers on the floor of an unused bedroom in my house.  Every couple days I took the flowers and shook them to release the seeds.   After about 2 weeks it was clear that the flowers had fairly dried out and dropped all the seed possible so I disposed of the flowers and swept up the seed that was all over the floor.  There was a lot of unwanted material with the seed, a few dried stems but mostly desiccated bits of the feathery flower.  Winnowing was necessary to separate the unwanted portions from the seed so I set up a household fan, and dropped the seed into the stream of air and the lighter unwanted bits were blown away while the seed dropped to a container below.  Once the seed was clean I weighed the results.  Now I started with ¼ teaspoon of seed that weighed maybe 10 grams and ended up with 3.2 kilograms of seed.   The yields from amaranth are simply astounding!

So what's amaranth good for?  Well, as flour supplement in baking, for one thing.  Amaranth is relatively higher in protein that wheat, in fact the amino acid balance in amaranth, the building blocks of protein, far more resembles the soy bean than wheat.   For better or worse, amaranth has no gluten, so it doesn't rise very much in the baking process.  OTOH, this might be just the thing for those who are gluten intolerant.  To use amaranth alone in conventional bread recipes produces a really heavy loaf with a strongly nutty taste.  Instead, we add only 20% amaranth to 80% wheat flour to bread dough and this produces a loaf that doesn't rise quite as much but the nutty flavor the amaranth imparts is very pleasant.  Eating a coupla slices of this bread leaves one quite satisfied as the amino acid balance of both the wheat and amaranth together makes for complete protein. Toasting slices of amaranth bread and spreading it with butter or flavorful olive oil is a real treat.

The other thing that can be done with the plant is to use the tender leaves in the young plant as an addition to salads.  The flavor of these leaves is subtle and the color of the leaves are variegated green and dull red so it adds some color to the salad.  Be warned that after a certain stage of growth those leaves turn tough and unusable in a salad.

Growing amaranth is easy, once the bed is prepared and the seed broadcast all it takes is water.  Remember that this is a plant that originates in much wetter climates so it needs watering about once a day, although for maybe 10-15 minutes.  Once the plants start to get above 30 cm it’s smart to add compost to the amount of 10-15 liters for each square meter of bed.  Although amaranth doesn't require extremely fertile soil it can easily deplete the soil of nutrients and starve out nearby plants that are sensitive to fertility, so add compost to keep things in balance.  Amaranth makes for a striking garden plant but those who might plant it for it’s ornamental value rather than to harvest the seed will notice a disadvantage.  The flower drops the seed in such abundance that the next year a lot of those seeds will be growing like gangbusters and make removal from your garden an annoyance for you or your gardener, not just for the following year but for a few years thereafter.  Like I mentioned, it’s so easy to grow  -- and it happily volunteers to grow even when you'd rather it didn't!

All in all, amaranth is an interesting and novel plant for a garden and if you have a bit of bed space I’d recommend trying it out.  I don't intend to grind all my seed into flour so and I’d be happy to provide a pinch of seed for any if those on the Efrat List who would like to try growing it. Contact me privately by e-mail if you’re interested.  Now be advised that my amaranth was last grown in 1993 and I’m not sure of the percentage of viable seed after that time.  However, a pinch contains several tens of seeds and all it takes is for one of those beggars to grow to demonstrate the amaranth plant.  Once one of them grows to maturity you’ll have more seed than you’ll know what to do with, so be warned!
 

 
From The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: by the Editors of Organic Gardening® Magazine, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA,  ISBN 0-87857-225-2  ©1978, p 30:

"Amaranth is the generic term for a group of annual herbs.  They are widely distributed, vigorous growers, thriving in heat and full sunshine. Often grown in the United States as an ornamental, the plant is an important food source in many other parts of the world. The stalks can be served like asparagus; the leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like spinach; and the mature pods can be ground for flour or popped like corn. The nutritional equal of spinach, amaranth leaves have the further advantages of a milder flavor and a lower oxalic acid content. Oxalic acid is known to tie up calcium in the body, making it unavailable to the system.

"The high-protein amaranth grains are produced in large sorghum like seed heads. Some analyses show amaranth seed to have a protein content over 18 percent, more than wheat or corn. Because of its amino acid ~ as an ornamental, the plant is an important food source in many other parts of the world. The stalks can be served like asparagus; the leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like spinach; and the mature pods can be ground for flour or popped like corn.  Because of its amino acid makeup, amaranth flour when combined with whole wheat or corn makes a protein as nutritious as meat.

"Widely available in the wild, where it is often known as pigweed, amaranth can also be cultivated. Sow the seeds 1/4 inch deep in the garden after all danger of frost is past, or start seeds indoors, being sure to give the seedlings plenty of light. The plants require well-drained soil which has been spaded deeply and enriched with plant food. They should have good air circulation. Under proper conditions the plants branch freely while still quite small. When in full bloom some varieties stand up to ten feet tall with every branch ending in a globular flower. Where they are grown in a soil richly supplied with humus, they may be expected to add another foot to their normal height. When grown for seed production, plants often produce 1 1/2 ounces of edible seed.

"Amaranths have an extensive flowering season, starting in June and 1asting well into August. They are among the easiest of all annuals to grow, showing a high endurance to summer heat and drought. For best results, however, they should never suffer from a lack of water. When growing Amaranthus as an ornamental, do not enrich the soil as poor soil brings out the bright colors of the leaves."