By Michael Marks
In the exhibit hall of a convention center in Lubbock, Texas, chef Chase Obenchain stands on a small black stage, demonstrating how to make a variation of Spanish rice.
As attendees are served the dish for lunch, Obenchain adds the ingredients to a pan: garlic, onions, tomatoes – but not rice. Instead, this dish calls for sorghum.
“Sorghum has a really, really beautiful way of just absorbing whatever cooking liquid that there is with it to be able to really showcase whatever other things it's being cooked with,” Obenchain said while he mixed the pearl-like sorghum grains with the vegetables.
Obenchain was cooking at the Global Sorghum Conference in mid-September for an audience of researchers, farmers and agribusiness professionals from around the world – all people well acquainted with sorghum. As corporate chef for the Sorghum Checkoff, a group that supports the sorghum industry, Obenchain often appears publicly to speak about the hardy grain. But usually he has to start with the basics.
“The first thing people say to me when I say I work with sorghum, it’s usually ‘What is sorghum?’” Obenchain said.
Sorghum, also called milo, is a kind of cereal like corn or wheat. It’s versatile — you can grind it into flour, pop it like popcorn, or boil it, like Obenchain did.
While the U.S. is the world’s leading producer of sorghum it’s hardly a staple here. Yet the grain could become an attractive option for farmers for one reason: it can grow through drought.
In order to develop the market farmers would need, though, more Americans have to eat it.
Click here to see more...