Hemp Grows on Washington: A Culinary Phenom

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HEMP: It won't get you high, but you sure can cook with it. But would you want to? And would you get arrested?

It's easier now to sample the culinary delights of the leafy green plant — at D.C.'s new Capitol Hemp (1802 Adams Mill Road; 202-332-819) in Adams Morgan. Owned by perennial Green Party candidate and D.C. statehood activist Adam Eidinger and fellow activist Alan Amsterdam, even the structure itself is made of hemp (in the form of particle board).

There are surprisingly stylish hemp clothes, hemp-related art, hemp shoes and some adults-only products in a room out back. But forget the water pipes — hemp is wholesome. It's the same species as marijuana — cannabis sativa — but genetic differences mean it won't get you high.

Up front in the family-friendly part of the store is the food. Hemp's touted as a great source of protein, essential fatty acids, iron, vitamin E and dietary fiber — which, of course, makes one suspect that it probably tastes terrible. (It doesn't.)

Best of all, it's legal to cook and purchase hemp. It's just not legal, in the U.S., to grow it. Why depends on who you ask. There are conspiracy theories involving paper mills and the suppression of competition. (Hemp makes good paper.) Others believe the plant was outlawed — and continues to be outlawed — because of its link to marijuana.

"Hemp has been misaligned with its cousin marijuana by lawmakers who have waged a cultural battle for years. Hemp has simply been unfairly caught up in the dragnet to ban marijuana," says Eidinger. "Because the U.S. is the biggest user of hemp products, we send our money to farmers in other countries."

So, we can't grow our own hemp but we can eat what's here, which is mostly imported from Canada, China and Europe. And what's here are hundreds of edible variations: oil, nuts, flour, chocolate, milk, cheese, bagels and more.

Snacking on a hemp power bar, Eidinger explains that he'll be cooking several hemp dishes based on recipes from the Galaxy Global Eatery Hemp Cookbook. He invited Express along.

The ingredients can all be found in Capitol Hemp and down the street at Yes! Natural Market. Hemp products are not widely available in mainstream grocery stores, but Whole Foods, Yes! Natural Market and others of like ilk have some, and Web sites are crawling with them.

And after the ingredients are bought, Eidinger and his wife, Alexis Baden-Mayer, are start cooking in their apartment. We meet a wiry young hemp enthusiast named Ben Droz, 21. The intern for the Vote Hemp lobbying group carries a small satchel of hemp nuts with him, so he can snack on them or sprinkle them onto restaurant meals to add nutrients, the way your mother might have sprinkled wheat germ onto your sugar cereal to redeem it a little.

"Truthfully, I do it so that I can add some protein to my unhealthy diet," Droz says. "If my friends go to Taco Bell,l I throw it in along with my hot sauce."

We dig into a healthy sampling of hempy foods, made using the various edible parts of hemp. Most are recipes that could have been made without it — the stuff is nearly flavorless, Eidinger says, and mostly just adds texture. And all that healthy stuff, of course.

We start with homemade guacamole, which is simply regular guac with hemp nuts mixed in. Next is salad with hemp nuts and hemp dressing (two parts hemp oil to three parts vinegar). The nuts add a taste and texture not unlike pine nuts to the salad, and the dressing tastes like regular oil and vinegar.

Hemp veggie burgers on hemp bagels with hemp mustard are the main course. The burgers themselves — made of hemp nuts and hemp oil mixed in with green beans, onion, garlic, ground almonds, bread crumbs and eggs, fried in a pan full of coconut oil — are bright green and dense, and quite tasty when topped with hemp mustard. The hemp bagel is too heavy with such a thick patty; Baden-Mayer suggests using hemp bread instead.

Finally, it's time for lemon hemparoons — lemon macaroons made with hemp seeds — and big glasses of chocolate hemp milk. The hemparoons are sweet, crunchy, lemony, perfect. The hemp chocolate milk is cold and refreshing. We are quiet and contemplative.

"We eat a lot of hemp," says Baden-Mayer. "But not usually this much in one meal."

Written by Express contributor Arin Greenwood
Photos by Sarah Goldberg for Express