indigenous dried corn recipe from rewild.com

     Kind of not supposed to be sharing these things with non-tribal members; but I've come to respect the people in this community and know this is not the place where people will misuse cultural traditions or use the secrets of the land for ill purpose. Here is one of the oldest recipes for drying corn we Lenape (Delaware) have used for time immemorial. (When it's done they sort of look like corn flakes, but reconstitute well to be used for various purposes.) You don't want to dry it on a screen or cheesecloth because you want the juicy mealy stuff to dry as part of it not drain away. Lots of nutrients in that stuff.

     "Kahapon. Dried corn. Traditional way to keep and dry corn for later use. Corn in the milk stage. Pinch the growing corn and the juice is milky and runny. Grate and grind the Xaskwim off the cobs collecting the corn, the germ, the juices all together. Take it outside to dry in the sun. And when it's finished you have it. Drying and keeping our corn for later use has been done this way since forever. There are a few other ways as well. Later on you can eat it, pound it in a kahakan (hollowed log corn pounder) , mix it with fat, ground meat and berries, make journeycakes, or throw water on it to make a type of porridge. The possibilities are endless."

Wikipedia's Page on Food Preservation

'Food preservation is the process of treating and handling food to stop or slow down spoilage (loss of quality, edibility or nutritional value) and thus allow for longer storage.

Preservation usually involves preventing the growth of bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and other micro-organisms (although some methods work by introducing benign bacteria, or fungi to the food), as well as retarding the oxidation of fats which cause rancidity. Food preservation can also include processes which inhibit visual deterioration that can occur during food preparation; such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut.

Many processes designed to preserve food will involve a number of food preservation methods. Preserving fruit, by turning it into jam, for example, involves boiling (to reduce the fruit’s moisture content and to kill bacteria, yeasts, etc.), sugaring (to prevent their re-growth) and sealing within an airtight jar (to prevent recontamination). There are many traditional methods of preserving food that limit the energy inputs and reduce carbon footprint.^[1]

Maintaining or creating nutritional value, texture and flavour is an important aspect of food preservation, although, historically, some methods drastically altered the character of the food being preserved. In many cases these changes have now come to be seen as desirable qualities – cheese, yoghurt and pickled onions being common examples.

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