It was great to incorporate this chicos-eating and stringing-up workshop as part of the school day at Chrysalis. Not only did all the students get to eat fresh chicos, but the Sembradores of our summer program were able to facilitate this process with pride knowing that they had planted and cared for the corn, built the horno, as well as making the fire and making the chicos.
We strung up the chicos as before and got to experiment with a different process of stringing up the chicos in a ladder-like configuration give that some of the stems of our ears of corn broke off. Now we really have a porch full of chicos!
Looking at the hanging chicos, it is obvious that we have several varieties of corn. It is easy to tell what is the Hopi Sweet corn but it is not so easy to differentiate between the native sweet corn and the ‘Peaches and Cream’ variety we obtained from a local vendor, though the corn was grown in neighboring Colorado. The sweet corn from Thanksgiving Farm is also similar-looking to these varieties so discerning them at this point will be a challenge.
The ‘Peaches and Cream’ variety, probably because it is a hybrid, is more caramelized and is easier to tell from the native or locally-grown variety.
We will be separating these as best we can and will be offering the ‘Peaches and Cream’ variety of chicos for $15 per pound and the native varieties and the Hopi sweet corn variety for $20 per pound. The funds obtained from these sales will help the Chrysalis students and Sembradores get to Washington D.C. in April and the Bioneers conference in 2013…
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