Gofio corn meal

Gofio cornmeal

The most popular food of all time for Canarians and the best known outside the islands, gofio, used to be the basic diet for aborigenes. It continued to be the main sustenance for the more humble classes, in other words, most of the local population, well into the 20th century too. “The term gofio was given by the ancient Canarians to toasted and crushed barley. In neighbouring Tenerife, the guanche population called it ahoren. Through colonization, the word gofio spread to the rest of the islands” says anthropologist Alberto García Quesada. Highly acclaimed by dietry experts and nutritionists, and a key ingredient in modern day Canary cuisine of local chefs, it continues to be an ever present at the majority of meal tables around the islands as a complement to breakfast and/or an accompaniment to dinner.

For those who may not know, gofio is a fine flour obtained from the toasting of one or several types of –and we stress- whole cereal. Hence all of its healthy qualities and its high nutritional value (ideal even as baby food from early months of life), it maintains all the cereals’ own goodness, especially its mineral content, as opposed to white flour. If the early aborigenes used to make it with the barley they cultivated, in Gran Canaria it is “millo”, the local word for corn, which is the most popular ingredient, and has been since the 17th century when the cereal first arrived and became the islanders’ favourite due to its goodness and wide range of uses. They turned it into gofio flour, with its typical toasted texture and flavour, ideal for both traditional consumption (especially the ever popular “escaldón”, mixed with a broth boiled with fish or meat) and more modern Canary cuisine.

Yuri Millares, December 2017