Welcome to You Ask Andy

Neil Nevins, age 11, of Greencastle, Ind., for his question:

What exactly is buckwheat?

Buckwheat pancakes and buckwheat honey rate high on a list of the world's favorite foods. A wintry week end morning is the time to remember them. Any 12 year old can play chef and fix a batch of nut brown hotcakes for the family. Serve with gobs of butter and honey or maple syrup.

Most people think that buckwheat is a cereal to be listed with oats, barley, wheat and rye. The true cereals are grasses. Buckwheat is a relative of the rhubarb and a member of the plant family Polygonacae. We borrowed our name for it from the Germans., who call it beech wheat because its three sided seeds are shaped like the seeds of the beech tree.

There is a lot to say about buckwheat and all of it good. The plant got its start in Asia where its relatives still grow wild among the weeds. The Chinese were perhaps the first to recognize its fine qualities, and they began to cultivate it ages ago. From Asia it was introduced into Europe, and the early settlers brought buckwheat seeds when they came to the New World.

A field of buckwheat grows fast and needs little care. It is not choosy about soil and thrives where top soil is eroded. Its fast spreading foliage shuts out the sun and crowds out weeds. Buckwheat may be sown to prevent soil erosion or the young crop may be plowed under to create mulch to enrich old soil. It may be sown to revitalize worn, old soil or to smother the weeds in patches of newly cleared land. The sturdy crop, however, tends to sulk in intense heat or in rough, windy weather.

The buckwheat plant is a handsome bush about three feet high. Its sizable leaves are shaped like graceful hearts, and its stems are topped with flat clusters of fragrant flowers, very popular with bees, who gorge on its sweet abundant nectar to create a wondrous stuff called buckwheat honey. The seeds are pounded into buckwheat flour for mealy brown pancakes. In Europe, they also make buckwheat bread and puddings, soups and cakes and beer. Another type of buckwheat is grown as fodder and this crop now yeilds a valuable medical drug.

Some of our buckwheat is grown in the Midwest, but most of it comes from Pennsylvania and New York. The carefree crop yeilds honey and flour and acts as both a soil builder and a soil saver. Buckwheat also is a healing plant. Its leaves produce rutin, a drug used to treat weakened capillaries and high blood pressure.

 

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