Traditional
Uses of Culinary Hemp Seed
Notes from Dr. Alexander Sumach, Hemp Futures
Study Group, with material from Chris Bennet
Editor's note: Hemp-based foods may be a
new entry into the national marketplace, but based
on our present understanding of hemp's highly
nutritious and EFA-rich content, its presence
in our diets is long overdue. In light of recent
events, and ongoing regulatory discussions about
the place and safety of hemp in our diets, it
may be time for a short history lesson.
The following material is excerpted from
a book project by Dr. Alexander Sumach that was
also supplied to Health Canada regarding hemp's
place as a "Novel Food." This material
was supplemented with excerpts from Chris Bennet's
article "Hemp Seed, the Royal Grain."
Modern reporting of hemp seed being used as a
traditional food can be found in vintage and contemporary
overviews of industrial hemp prepared for review
by government agencies charged with amending legislation
to accommodate industrial hemp. Additional material
appears from original research prepared for my
book "New World Hemp History" to be
published in Canada next year.
"Hemp seed used in all the oriental nations
and in part in Russia as food. It is grown in
their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of
people everyday are using hemp seed in the Orient
as food. They have been doing this for many generations,
especially in periods of famine." Quote from
Ralph Loziers, general council for the National
Institute of Oilseed Producers, concerning the
historic culinary uses of hemp seed, testimony
presented before the U.S. Congress Committee in
1937 reviewing cannabis legislation prior to enacting
the Marihuana Tax Act.
"Prior to the end of WW2, hemp made a significant
contribution to the economic and social fabric
of society ... (lists agricultural benefits of
hemp) ... as well as food and oil from the seeds
... it can be ground up and used in soups, cereals
and other foods." Quote from "Weekly
Bulletin," publication of the Canadian Department
of Agriculture and Food, Vol. #7-22, December
1994.
Four short years after the Marihuana Tax Act passed
in the U.S., a researcher writing for a 1941 edition
of Science lamented the loss of access
to the hemp seed's rare and important globule
edestins: "Passage of the Marijuana Law of
1937 has placed restrictions upon trade in hemp
seed that, in effect, amount to prohibition ...
It seems clear that the long and important career
of the protein is coming to a close in the United
States."
China, in ancient times referring to itself as
"the land of hemp and mulberry," has
perfected hemp culture for textiles and human
food over the course of many centuries. The consumption
of raw or roasted hemp seed is as common as eating
sunflower seeds or peanuts in many parts of China
to the present day. Edible hemp seed continues
to be available at food markets, as it remains
a popular traditional food that has been enjoyed
by millions of the Chinese people for many centuries.
No instances of harm attributed to the eating
of hemp seed in any quantity has been reported.
Fresh roasted hemp seed remains a popular confection
in contemporary China, and hemp seed continues
to be enjoyed as a snack suitable for families
attending cinemas and public events.
Edible hemp seed was not initially popular with
Europeans who regarded it as coarse fare, famine
food to fall back during bad times. Hemp seed
nutrition was better invested in feeding animals
in better times and humans returned to more interesting
entrees than survival cake. The humble hemp seed
— nutritious but gritty — presents
a prehistoric cross-cultural image of fortitude
over want. Before the introduction of the potato
and maize from the New World, hemp seed —
by necessity rather than choice — was a
frequent staple food of the vegetarian rural poor
in areas of the world where hemp seed was abundant
because of escalated hemp cultivation for marine
fibre in the 15th century. Hemp seed was the sole
source of edible vegetable oil in the northerly
and mountainous areas of Eurasia where hemp crops
could be grown but where imported luxury vegetable
oils such as olive oil were unavailable or prohibitively
expensive. This was especially so before WW2.
Locally grown and pressed hemp seed oil was used
for household cooking oil in the outbacks of Nepal
— observed in the 1970's by a National Geographic
expedition documenting traditional Nepalese village
life. Locally harvested hemp seed was the only
local source of vegetable oil for these ancient
people living in modern times.
There is anecdotal evidence that the Doukabours,
a Christian vegetarian freedom sect living in
western Canada since the turn of the century had
prepared hemp seed paste for food as part of their
Spartan lifestyle in Russia. These Sons of Freedom
apparently resumed growing and using hemp upon
arrival in Canada and consumed a small portion
of the hemp seed harvest on a regular basis prior
to and somewhat after prohibition measures in
the 1930s.
In the former USSR, North Eastern Europe and the
Baltic nations, traditional hemp growing zones
that supplied fibre hemp for western European
shipping expansion in the 15th century, turned
to locally abundant hemp seed for vegetable oil
and made good use of the whole hemp seed ground
fine in the home kitchen. Seed was often fashioned
into a smooth paste, similar to peanut butter
to be spread on bread or toast and eaten. This
hemp seed butter was a particular favorite of
children. In the Baltic nation of Latvia, hemp
seed is traditionally included in festival foods
eaten during St. John's Day, June 21. A soup made
from hemp seeds called semientiatka is eaten ritually
on Christmas Eve in Poland and Lithuania, and
in Latvia and Ukraine, possibly in remembrance
of the Persian King's Grain, a similar meal is
eaten in the celebration of Three King's Day.
Commercially manufactured hemp butter is currently
available in jars sold in eastern European speciality
food stores, but it is not available in Canada.
Eastern European immigrants growing such old country
herbs as Cannabis in backyard gardens in Canada
came to the attention of Metro Toronto police
officers in the 1970s. The culinary intention
of the cultivators, producing a few handfuls of
tasty hemp seed for the winter soup kettle was
accepted as an explanation.
In 1955 the Czechoslovakian Tubercular Nutrition
Study concluded that hemp seed was the "only
food that can successfully treat the consumptive
disease tuberculosis, in which the nutritive processes
are impaired and the body wastes away." (Rowan
Robinson, The Great Book of Hemp, 1996).
End Notes
These notes of traditional use of hemp seed as
a human food in the Old World imply that the whole
seed, hard seed jacket and all was eaten as food.
Hemp seed is favorable, but when traditionally
prepared produces an objectionably gritty edible
paste, as the small hard shell cannot be easily
removed. About 20% of the weight of hemp seed
is comprised of the hard seed coat.
It had not been practical to dehull hemp seed
during times of traditional use, and only gritty
dark hemp seed meal has ever been available on
the world market. Recent advances in factory scale
hemp seed dehulling using mechanical separation
produces a smooth white gritless hemp seed meal
that requires no further treatment before it can
be eaten.
This important modern innovation that separates
the seed jacket from the nutritious meal produces
a more acceptable product than had ever been eaten
in times passed.
Hemp is an industrial cultivar of Cannabis
sativa L. The hemp plant is known by dozens
of regional traditional monikers. Old World language
groups tend to share a single common root word
describing cannabis — the cane. Each language,
over many centuries modified the ancient root
word only slightly to derive their own national
word for "hemp." This suggests a pattern
of long commonly-shared knowledge of hemp by the
European Community.
Dr. Alexander Sumach
Hemp Futures Study Group
PO Box 1680
Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada LOS IJO
(905) 468-3928
rheading@becon.org
|
