No true cereals in the Americas?

I was watching "America Before Columbus" last night. The tile was somewhat misleading in that I thought the whole thing was about pre-Conquest America, but was really 1/2 before and 1/2 after. I won't go into too much detail, but it was talking about how both cultures benefited from each other in the Columbian Exchange (we won't go into the gift of smallpox which killed 50 million natives). One of the points it made was that The Americas were transformed by the introduction of true cereal grains from Europe (wheat, barley, oats, etc.) and that the Americas had nothing really comparable except Maize (a grass) and Potatoes (a tuber). To which I thought; "A 100 million people did not live just eating corn." And guess what? They didn't.

Quinoa and Amaranth were also staple pseudocereals. The Aztecs used to make cakes out of Amaranth grain in the shapes of their gods, and then eat them during celebrations. The Spanish thought it looked too much like Communion wafers and outlawed it. Of course.

After doing some research, Amaranth looks like a great plant. The seeds don't have hulls (so they don't need to be threshed) and can be made into things like porridge (similar to oats) or actual breads. It has higher protein than any of the true cereals, is gluten-free, and looks amazing with red/orange heads. Apparently the orange varieties are easier to digest than the red/brown ones. Its also a warm weather plant (its September and STILL in the 90's) and doesn't need a whole lot of rain.

I'm my continual quest to have a "Native Garden" (an having a miserable success rate on European cultivators) what do you think I will be planting next year? Bet you can't guess???

;)