Bringing flax to the New World

While I was in the States my grandmother gifted me several pounds of brown flax seed to bring here to the DR (at my request). In the last couple years I have developed an addiction to the seed, which in addition to being part of the plant used to make linen, is a fantastic source of Omega 3 fatty acids and when crushed is delicious on yogurt, granola, fruit or anywhere else a slightly nutty flavor is appropriate. At the airport I had to rearrange some things as my luggage was slightly overweight and I am sure that anyone who saw it was probably like, “Why is this chick transporting animal feed into to the DR?” Which really is a stupid question since there is a huge abundance of livestock here. But anyway, I have an addiction to the seed my grandma uses to make her horses coats shinier and from what I can tell there are about two health food stores in this entire country.

Since returning I have been hand crushing it with my mortar and pestle and putting it in all the food I make for myself and my family. So far it’s been a great hit with my dad and one of my little brothers. They absolutely loved it in banana bread, peanut butter banana milk shakes and banana pancakes…can you guess what we have an abundance of in the house right now, aside from flax?

When something is in season here you usually can’t get much of it during the rest of the year so we just eat it all day every day when it’s around. As an American who is used to having every type of food from every corner of the world at my fingertips whenever I want it, come hell or high oil prices, I hate this. But I hate more to see food go to waste – especially fresh fruits and vegetables, so I have been inventing new ways to eat bananas and avocados. If only Tristan were here to help!

Note: In case you didn’t pick up on it this entry is slightly facetious. I really do love flax but I really have no idea where flax originated and I don’t believe that this hemisphere is the new world – rather it was indeed a world before the Europeans were here :)