Plimoth Grist Mill Heritage 8 Row Flint Cornmeal
“Nature hath delighted it selfe to beautify this Corne with great Variety of Colours.”
A true Plimoth Patuxet original! In the 1990's the Museum teamed up with botanists from UMASS Amherst to develop a corn which closely resembled period descriptions of the corn grown by the Wampanoag and adopted by the Pilgrims in the 1600's. Our Plimoth 8-Row Flint Corn is the result.
To produce this multi-colored Indian corn with 8 rows of kernels, an ancient 8-rowed white corn called Naragansett White Cap Flint (still grown in Rhode Island for Jonnycakes), was crossed with multi-colored flint corns. Years of selected seed saving resulted in a beautiful multi-colored corn which exactly matches the descriptions by visitors to early Plymouth Colony.
Our Plimoth 8-Row Flint is grown for us by Lazy Acres Farm in North Hadley, MA.
The corn is stone ground on antique millstones and, like the first grist mill built here in 1636, our waterwheel is powered by Plymouth’s Town Brook.
Flavor and Preparation
Plimoth 8-Row Flint Cornmeal has an earthy and assertive corn taste that will stand out in your baked goods, imparting a delicious corny taste and aroma. The meal is a white to tan color with flecks of blue, red and yellow. Like its parent Naragansett White Cap Flint, Plimoth 8-Row Flint Corn makes delicious and authentic Jonnycakes.
Plimoth 8-Row Flint Sampe (grits) is likewise robust with a full corn flavor, making it an excellent choice for pairing with meats and sauces, like polenta. The flecks of color lend it a beautiful confetti-like appearance.
Our cornmeal and sampe are made from whole kernel corn and are milled in small batches between massive 200 year-old millstones. Commercially produced cornmeal usually removes the germ to increase shelf life. Our products contain the whole grain, the whole flavor, and all the nutrition. We recommend storing them in the refrigerator or freezer, where they’ll remain fresh for a year or more. Cornmeal & Sampe are sold separately in 1 LB bags.
How we make our cornmeal and sampe
Organic corn is fed through an opening in the top (runner) stone and is drawn between it and the bottom (bed) stone. The power from the waterwheel turns the runner stone. The corn is forced into wide grooves (furrows) cut in both stones and is, scissored into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, the ground corn works its way to the edge of the stone, falls off the edge into a chute and from there into the flour bin down below.
Our stone ground is sifted by hand, and the finer pieces are bagged for sale as cornmeal. The larger pieces are separated from the hull (seed coating) and then sifted again through a coarser screen. The result of this second sifting we bag and sell as sampe, also known as grits, or polenta.
We thoroughly clean our equipment after milling wheat and rye and make every effort to eliminate all traces of gluten. However, we cannot guarantee that our corn products are 100% gluten-free, and as such we are not a certified gluten-free facility.
For wholesale inquiries call 1-800-262-9356 x 8332.
