Organic Stone Ground Corn Meal

It’s extremely difficult to find organic corn (non-gmo, no chemical fertilizers, etc.), so we’re particularly fond of this product.  Corn gets a bit of a bad rap because of it’s over-use in animal feed, particularly on mono-culture farms (think endless miles of corn and soybeans in the midwest…), but it’s actually a bit of a rarity in the Manitoba organic world. Because organic farms do not use chemical inputs, a crop like corn that requires high quantities of nitrogen is calculated carefully. Adding fertility to a field is difficult in an organic system, relying on many years of green manures or costly animal manure compost, and so it’s very difficult to find organic corn (non-gmo, no chemical fertilizers, etc.).

For this reason, we were particularly excited to source corn from Doug Unrau, who grows corn on his mixed organic farm near MacGregor Manitoba. Without any market for milling corn in Manitoba or Western Canada, he has been growing the crop primarily to feed to his own animals, but has been generous enough to part with some to enable our milling experiments!

Although I had never used much cornmeal before, i’m now finding that it is one of my pantry staples, and I use it regularly for cornbread, muffins, polenta, fish batter, pizza crusts, and anything battered and fried (zucchini fries anyone?).  We’ve been impressed with how the flavour and texture of this cornmeal is so much more interesting than the “regular” stuff!

I bought myself an early Christmas present last year (ummm…sorry hubby…I blew the budget on that one!) and now grind cornmeal with a stone flour mill, where I can adjust the fineness more than in previous versions.  We’re so happy with how this cornmeal turns out, and we’re sure it will become a new pantry staple once you try it!