North America · Volume 29, Salmon, Cedar and the Acorn World
Pinole
San Francisco Bay Area, Ohlone, and Chumash and Pomo territory, California, USA
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 216 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Pinole
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- chia seed (Salvia columbariae) and other ripe seed heads
- to taste water, to thin as a gruel or drink
Method
- Beat ripe chia and other seed heads into a burden basket with a paddle-shaped seed beater.
- Parch by tossing hot coals together with the seed in a flat tray, the wind aiding separation of husk from kernel as the mixture is tossed.
- Grind to a flour.
- Eat dry, as a gruel thinned with water, or press into portable travel cakes.
- The Chumash made a comparable chia pinole, thinned as a thirst-quenching drink or thickened into dried cakes depending on how much water was used; the Pomo made pinole too.
What a modern chef changes
The spice grinder's toasting mode, doing what the coals did
Method
- Recognise that the hot-coals-and-tray parching method is, mechanically, exactly what a spice grinder's dry-toast function or a heavy dry pan achieves today.
- Toast the seed in small batches in a dedicated spice grinder's toasting mode, or a dry pan over careful heat, for more even parching than tossing coals by hand.
- Change nothing about the method's basic logic of dry heat plus constant motion.