Huauhtli, the grain the Spaniards catalogued as "bledos"

Amaranth is best known for a story — that Spain banned it — repeated everywhere and sourced nowhere. A dictionary printed at Mexico in 1571 lists nine kinds of the grain by colour under their Nahuatl names and gives it its own harvest verb beside those for maize, chia, chilli and beans. A friar's ethnography records both uses: the dough shield made for a newborn, and the honeyed sops fed to slaves the night before they died. Between them lies the friars' motive — and no decree against the crop.