A Prelude to Quinoa
One of humankind’s greatest achievements has arguably been our skill and ability in identifying and understanding the natural abundance our planet blesses us with.
It’s probably fair to say our efforts in mastering the physical realm, and utilising a multitude of sequentially discovered innovations to our advantage, is what has led to our becoming the dominant species on the planet. The breadth of knowledge we’ve gained from our studious investigations is also what largely underpins our very survival.
In the process of unlocking Mother Nature’s secrets, mankind has devised all kinds of ingenious procedures and devices which help us to produce and manufacture goods, food and services of every shape, size and description. Some bright soul has actually estimated there are around 10 billion different “things” currently produced in the modern global economy, with the number growing daily.
This vast array of goodies we need for our food, shelter and clothing; or purely for entertainment and business purposes, requires huge amounts of effort and resources to produce. Once their processing has been finished, these goods we need and desire are packaged and moved, using ever more resources and energy, through complex distribution networks until eventually they find their way to consumers in all corners of the globe.
Undertaking all this activity of course also produces unimaginable amounts of waste and pollution. We are also continually depleting resources which have only finite limits. That is to say, many of the minerals, plants and animals we so freely use will one day all but disappear. You will be pleased to know that these problems, the collateral damage if you like, are issues of an entirely different stripe and not what I intend discussing in this story.
What follows in the next blog is a light hearted story, eventually to be a series of stories, which will track the journey and fates of a few common products we all probably use at some stage or other. After all the effort we go through to manufacture and distribute these elaborate products, for one reason or another, some of them never get to fulfil the use for which they were originally intended. As we will discover in the stories, there are many reasons behind these unintended and sometimes sad redundancies.
Our first journey into the world of elaborate redundancy will begin in the parched and arid Nazca Desert of southern Peru. It’s a most fitting place to start a story of intrigue, as the high plateau desert, which stretches for more than 50 miles in the high Andes, is also home to the mysterious Nazca Lines.
The naturally preserved lines of lime coated stones found in the Nazca desert dust are actually huge motifs, created by an ancient native culture about 500 years BC. One theory suggests the markings might originally have been created to be used as celestial markers. Other conspiracy theorists think they may be guides to assist an alien landing or possibly an invitation to a benevolent God. Whatever the original intent, included among the ancient and monumental Andean workings are hundreds of simple lines and shapes, 70 of which are designed in more complex shapes such as birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, and monkeys, or human figures. Other designs include trees and flowers. Some of the figures span over 370 meters in length and can only be seen from the air, or from elevated mountain positions. Very unique and strange stuff indeed… and if you don’t believe me… well, here are a few pictures I found via a quick Google search. You can do the same if you are interested, there’s plenty there.
Apart from these mysterious formations, the Nazca Plain is also one of the more dry and windless places on the face of earth. Despite that shortcoming it is also home, along with many other regions of the high Andes, to the indigenous herbaceous plant we know as Quinoa.
The plant, once sacred to the ancient Incas, is grown primarily for its edible and nourishing seeds. Quinoa isn’t a cereal grass like many of the other grains we eat though. It’s instead derived from a shrub like plant, about 1 -2 metres tall; and is thought to have originally been domesticated some 3 to 4,000 years ago from wild weed populations. Oddly enough, quinoa is also related to the beetroot and spinach families. The little round seeds which form in the flowers of the shrub after a short growing season are gluten free and generally cooked in the same way as rice. They’ve long provided a complete source of protein, dietary fibre and minerals for the people of the high Andes.
When the quinoa plant matures, the fruit is manually harvested (too difficult to do with machine as the seeds mature at different stages) and the bitter coating around the seeds is removed by threshing. Because of its health giving qualities, quinoa has grown in global popularity over recent decades and is now grown in a number of other countries around the world, but only where there is suitable mild weather and sufficient altitude. A couple of other interesting facts you may be interested to know about quinoa before we move on with the story of Alfredo. Due to its popularity the price of quinoa tripled between 2006 and 2013; and it is now more than ten times the value of wheat. Such a pricing is probably not a good thing for those who have long depended on it as a cheap and reliable source of staple food. Quinoa was also recently approved as a kosher food.
Who would have guessed such a humble food staple had so much romance attached to it!!