A love for
buckwheat.

Texts / Thoughts.
 
 !!!  If you suffer from a histamine intolerance, you have to try out yourself, to see if buckwheat is tolerated. In my case it worked so far.

If one can hardly digest any grains or legumes, the choice gets quite small. I didn’t knew about the pseudograin buckwheat, until I had to search for an alternative to spelt, barley and legumes. I liked their taste, but they gave me brain fog, eczema, stomach pain and a runny nose due to my allergies and intolerances.
 
So I found out about buckwheat. This ancient grain is native to asia and has surprisingly nice features in nutrition and needs a very short time to grow. Which is/was especially important for growing food in colder regions. Nowadays this healthy grain is often substituted by wheat, which makes me sad. I think the old idea was the better choice.

Surprisingly, buckwheat was also used and cultivated for traditional dishes in the southern Swiss mountain regions. Since I’m living and native in this country, this discovery made me feel at least a bit connected to the heritage which made people survive in ancient times. Others would be milk, cheese, potatoes, pome fruits, meat etcetera, on which swiss inhabitants survived in that sometimes harsh climate.

So what is left, to connect a person to homeland and family, when all native foods are indigestible? Isn't it food and shared meals, which makes part of us to social beings? I think a lot about that and I'm happy about ancient buckwheat recipes, or traditional swiss recipes, which I allow myself to tweak a little to my needs.
 
When I started to get used to the taste of buckwheat, I found out that there are different sorts of buckwheat and that I don't like all of them (I prefere the husked greenish looking one). One has to test different producers to find a mild or tasty one. Search for a finely ground flour from husked seeds.
 
I use buckwheat almost every day and as you see in many recipes as a substitute to wheat. Since it does not contain gluten, one has to get used to it with cooking.

Buckwheat has many health benefits and if interested there can be read a lot about that in the internet (I’m not good at nutrition counting). It is high in protein (complete eight amino acids set) which is in my case very welcome, since I shouldn’t eat legumes and want to stick to a vegan diet.

I like buckwheat a lot and if I had to choose one food to take on a lonely Island, this might be it.