Yesterday, Gourmet Retailer featured a great overview of hemp as both a raw material and culinary ingredient, and then followed it up with a recipe.The article goes over some of the health benefits of hemp and then reprints this recipe for Hemp Orzo Pasta Salad from Manitoba Harvest.
Cook one cup Orzo pasta in boiling, salted water. Fold in the following ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons cold-pressed hemp seed oil
- 1 tablespoon hemp seed butter
- 1 tablespoon shelled hemp seed
- 1 tablespoon tahini
- 1 tablespoon agave nectar
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons Bragg’s amino acid, or
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper or cayenne
- 1 small cucumber, diced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans or shelled edamame, as you prefer
What was really interesting about the piece, however, was that it didn’t just focus on the nutritional benefits of hemp, but also on many of industrial and environmental benefits, not to mention many of the socio-political issues surround hemp. For instance, to illustrate some of the paradoxes of hemp production, author James Mellgren writes:
In France and China, they use it to strengthen concrete. Mercedes Benz uses it to make many of their interior door panels, and the original Levi jeans were made from it. Christopher Columbus had ropes made from it as he sailed to the New World, and our own Declaration of Independence is written on it. It was grown by the Puritans, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin used it to make paper in America’s first paper mill. All around the world, it is used to make paper, clothing, rope, textiles, biodegradable plastics, food and fuel. It requires no chemicals to make it grow or keep bugs away, controls the erosion of the topsoil, and produces oxygen. It also can supplant many industrial materials that have been proven to be harmful to the environment and to ourselves such as paper made from trees (not only does this require the cutting down of trees but the use of bleach and other toxic chemicals contribute to water pollution anywhere paper is made), cosmetics and plastics that are petroleum-based and do not break down easily. What is this wonder material? Is it some new high-tech substance, perhaps? The answer is, of course, hemp, a plant (a weed really) that has been cultivated for nearly 10,000 years, and has been used for various purposes since the Stone Age. It could be the answer to untold environmental issues, not to mention world hunger, and yet you can’t grow it because it’s against the law in the United States.
Seeing this kind of socio-politico awareness in a gourmet magazine gives me hope that we’re that much closer to introducing hemp products into the mainstream. That kind of market demand would stimulate not only technological advancements that would facilitate mass-production and drive down the price of hemp-related products, but likely inspire legislative reform in immense but prohibitive markets such as the US.