Amaranth

The amaranth flower is a showy, shrub-like annual plant that often re-seeds itself in certain climates and appears again the next year. With stalks as high as several feet and flower heads of hundreds of tiny, vibrant red blossoms arranged in long, tail-like plumes that droop toward the ground, amaranth is difficult to miss in any garden. There are more than 60 species of amaranth, and they can grow in most areas of the world. Some common names include love lies bleeding, prince’s feathers, red cock’s comb, lady bleeding, velvet flower, and pigweed.

Ancient Greeks called it amaranthus, meaning “never fading flower” or “one that does not wither.” Even after picked, the blooms remain colorful and fresh longer than of most other cut flowers. For this reason, amaranth were used frequently to decorate graves. In the Victorian language of flowers, amaranth represented unfading love, faith, and immortality. Between 600 and 1900 A.D., the literate world must have known of amaranth’s symbolism, for references to it are abundant in the works of Aesop, Joachim du Bellay, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Wordsworth.

In addition to being considered somewhat gentle in nature, amaranth also has a violent and bloody reputation. The ancient Aztecs who occupied what is now Mexico, engaged in religious rituals involving human sacrifice, cannibalism, and amaranth seeds.

The Aztecs called amaranth huaútli. The plant is native to the Americas, and its use dates from 4000 B.C. The young leaves were eaten fresh as salad, and mature leaves were boiled and eaten like spinach. When dried, the flowers were shaken, and the tiny innumerable seeds collected for cooking. The seeds could be popped like popcorn, boiled like a cereal, or ground up as flour and made into tamales and tortillas. The Aztec god of war and the sun, Huitzilopochtli, whose name partially means hummingbird, loved amaranth (hummingbirds feed on the amaranth flower)—and blood. He required tributes of both to keep the sun moving across the sky and to preserve the people’s lives. Tons of amaranth seeds were provided annually, along with captive prisoners who were ritually beheaded, their hearts torn from their bodies, body parts given to honored guests for consumption,¹ and blood mixed with amaranth seeds and made into cakes in the god’s likeness. These cakes were then broken apart, shared, and eaten among the faithful.

When the Spanish invaded the Americas, they saw it as a savage mockery of Christian communion.² They criminalized the cultivation of amaranth in 1519, cutting off the hand of any who dared to plant it.³ Unfortunately, it also “cut the hand” that was used to feed itself. Amaranth provided a high source of protein (13-14%) and the essential amino acid, lysine, to diets composed mainly of plants. It is estimated to have provided up to 80% of their energy consumption before the Spanish conquest.

The last two decades have seen a resurgence in amaranth use, now recognized as a super-food and a crop of the future that can be an inexpensive source of protein for rural areas around the world. Even though uncultivated for centuries, amaranth refused to die out, so perhaps it truly is a symbol of immortality.

As the ancient Greeks said, amaranth is “one that does not wither.” Your leather furniture in beautiful Turncoat Amaranth also will not wither away and lose the freshness it brings to your decor.