Chew on a cocoa bean. It’s not nearly tasty as sipping of a cup of cocoa, is it? Many foods can’t be eaten unless they’re ground up first. Hunt through your kitchen. See how many foods can’t be eaten unless they’re ground up, are already ground up or are made by ground-up ingredients.
How did all those ground-up foods get ground up? Mostly by large grinding machines in mills or bakeries. But for thousands of years, it was a different story. Grinding food was part of everyday life - and it was done by hands.
GRIND SOME HAIS
Hais is an ancient version of trail mix from North Africa. Nomads ate it as they travelled. They needed food that wouldn’t spoil, was nourishing, easy to carry and filling. Hais was made by grinding bread, dates and nuts into little pieces and forming them into balls. Makes Hais yourself but do the grinding the old way, by hand. It’s up to you to figure out how. Food processors and blenders and other electrical blenders are out of bounds! As you’ll find out, hais is delicious, but a little goes along way.
100% NATURAL :
> 50 ml L (1/4 cup) pistachio nuts
> 50 ml L (1/4 cup) dates
> 50 ml L (1/4 cup) shelled almonds
> 50 ml L (1/4 cup) dry breadcrumbs
> a spoonful of cooking oil (the old recipe calls for sesame oil - buy it at health food stores)
> powdered sugar (optional)
LETS MIX THEM UP!
1. Remove the pistachio nuts from their shells
2. If the dates are hard, soak them in a little warm water to soften them, remove the pits.
3. Crush, pound or grind up the dates, almonds and pistachio until the pieces are about the size of rice grains. Mix them all together
4. Mix in the breadcrumbs and add just enough oil to make things stick together
5. For the mixture into little balls. Sprinkle them with sugar if you wish. Eat.
^________^ taken from Discover Dinosaurs : A Royal Ontario Museum Book
