Sunday, February 7, 2010

Sprout Doubt


Last spring, I attempted to sprout seeds at home.  Caught up in the romance of nutrition-rich home-grown vegetables, I imagined myself like some pioneerswoman, supplementing our winter diet with a steady rotation of different sprouts.

For my first attempt, I tried mustard seed, brown rice, and black-eyed peas.  The mustard seed never did anything but sit sadly in its jar.  The rice and peas both sprouted - the beans quite nicely.  

In order to sprout seeds, they need to be soaked for several hours.  Then, they need to be kept moist but clean for several days.  This requires rinsing them a couple times a day to prevent spoilage.  It was the required regular rinsing that spurred disaster.  Running late one morning, I didn't have time to rinse my sprouts before school... and really, I thought they'd be fine.  By the time I got home, however, they had gone bad.  Ugh, the smell.

Seeds vary in how long they take to sprout as well as how often they need to be rinsed.  I used the Rodale's Basic Natural Foods Cookbook as a reference.  This cookbook is one of my favorite procedural books for handling raw foods.  It also has a lot of excellent recipes (although for my tastes many of them are under-salted).  This was also the book that taught me how to can foods as a teenager and so my copy is tie-dyed with various berry, tomato, and vegetable juices.  


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