Slow Food Adobe Horno Style

FIRST CHICOS ROAST AT RANCHO DOS ACEQUIAS

San Acacio, CO. The slow food movement brings together several major elements crucial to a resilient, ecologically sound, and socially just agricultural and food system: First, the food is produced locally by community-based farmers; second, the food is organic, natural, and grown from heirloom seed stocks; third, the crops are harvested by local farmers, families, and friends - this involves mutual aid, cooperative labor, and a strong sense of interconnected communities; and fourth, local families have access to the food produced by farmers representing an investment in local sustenance and support for culturally-appropriate food ways and heritage cuisines.

Devon and his farming partner, Joe Gallegos, wait for the embers to reach the right heat before feeding their heirloom maiz de concho for the chicos roast in their home-made adobe oven or horno.

This past week, we engaged in the first chico corn roast at Rancho Dos Acequias, the 200-acre home of the Acequia Institute located in San Acacio, Colorado, in the San Luis Valley at an elevation of about 8,000 feet above sea level.

The production of chico, or roasted white corn, is an ancient practice that Indo-Hispano farmers developed by adopting the Pueblo Indian practice of cooking in adobe ovens. The production of chico corn is a very elaborate, labor intensive, and slow process. There are fifteen major steps involved in producing roasted chico corn:

1. planting,
2. irrigating,
   
3. cultivating,
4. harvesting,
   
5. stripping half of the corn husks to promote even cooking and prevent scorching,
6. soaking the corn in water,
7. building the fire,
8. feeding the corn into the horno,
9. steaming the crop overnight in the sealed horno,
10. removing the steamed corn from the horno,
11. stripping the remaining husks from the steamed corn,
12. laying out the corn on drying racks for 3-5 days,
13. stripping the kernels from the cobs (a process called desgranando),
14. cleaning the chicos on a windy day, and
15. finally, packaging the chicos for sales or storing them for future use.

Of course, we do not harvest all the corn and a good portion is left on the stalks to dry out for use as seed for the next season.

The roasting of chicos is the epitome of slow food. The entire process takes about 7-8 weeks. Our maiz de concho is a 60-75 day variety. We planted our two-acre field in late June and our harvest started on day 74 after planting. This is a rapidly maturing maize land race variety and is adapted to the high altitude, arid, and short-growing season environment of Colorado's high altitude San Luis Valley.

Our friends and neighbors, Victor Nelson Cisneros, Joe Gallegos, Rick Olguin, Mario Montano, and Karen Mendoza, assist with the shucking of the husks before corn is fed into the horno.

Growing and harvesting the corn, however, is only the beginning of the process. The roasting of the corn is another all day and overnight affair. Removing and preparing the chicos for the drying racks (or in some places the lacing together of the corn cobs in ristras) takes another full day. Desgranando and cleaning the chicos is another all day task. There can be no rushing of chicos production.

More significantly, the process is not just an agricultural production task, it is a cherished and time-honored social event. Our work this year proceeded because we had so much help. A dozen youth from the Sembrando Semillas (Planting Seeds) project of the New Mexico Acequia Association, Las Comadres de San Luis, and The Acequia Institute, joined us in the harvest and prep work before the roasting. Friends and neighbors also pitched in. It was an example of the labor of love and the love of collective labor. The process engages the entire community in the production of our local heritage food ways and provides a means to mentor and educate local youth on the knowledge, skills, and virtues of slow foods.