AMBROSIAL GRANOLA, INC Ambrosial Granola, Inc. 718-491-1335 Until a ...

Until a few days ago, Hariclia Makoulis, owner of Ambrosial Granola, an organic whole grain cereal company in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, had no idea that the word "granola" can be used as slang for "hippie." Though the Greek native has lived in the States since 1973, has been shopping at health food stores for nearly as long, has made granola for her family for the last 20 years and unreservedly characterizes herself as socially progressive, she has never encountered that bit of vernacular.

"I didn't have any idea about hippies and granola!" Makoulis admits with genuine astonishment. A distinguished woman in her 50s wearing chinos, a white polo shirt with a flipped up collar, oversized wire-rimmed glasses and her curly silver hair close-cropped, Makoulis adds, "I guess I'm a hippie, too!"

Makoulis, who had a career as a social researcher until 1999 and started her granola business shortly thereafter, confesses that a social agenda has leaked into the food that she sells.

"Studying sociology, you become progressive in your ideas, and I thought I would contribute something outside of myself by manufacturing food that is pure and honestly presented," she says. "I was always concerned about social issues and sociology and environmental issues, and I was always a health food freak. When my kids were little they didn't have a choice but to eat healthy foods."

The persistent connection between social progressivism and granola reaches back further than Ms. Makoulis, and even further than the 1960s. One man cited as being the inventor of granola was Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century minister who created "Graham" flour, which he made into his "Graham" cracker and, later, a substance called "granula"-twice-baked sheets made from Graham flour broken into pieces. Although Graham wasn't exactly a hippie (he was known to sermonize on the benefits of temperance and chastity), he did influence such fringe figures as transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott, founder of the Fruitlands utopian society, where Graham flour was a staple part of the diet.

At its headquarters in Dyker Heights, the elegant gold letters on the maroon awning that announce Ambrosial Granola's presence pretty much disallow any further comparisons between the grungy kind of granola and the granola that Makoulis makes. Inside her spacious one-room workplace-a polished space with original decorative woodwork, warm yellow walls and attractive hardwood floors-the heady fragrance of clove (not patchouli) is immediate and unrelenting. The room itself is a veritable cornucopia: inside are heavy sacks of organic oats, almonds, flax and sunflower seeds, buckets of wildflower honey, olive oil, molasses and dried fruit in quantity.

The product-which comes in three flavors, Apricot Almond, Date Walnut and Honey Spice Walnut-is a gritty mouthful, crunchy with nuts, grains and seeds, heavily scented with spices and actually quite delicious despite its conspicuously "healthy" nature. It's available at close to three-dozen shops around the city, including Gristedes, a Food Emporium and Fairway.

"Coming from Greece," explains Makoulis, "food is somewhat different. In my years growing up, we used to eat a lot of nuts, seeds, olive oil, honey, but not combined and baked. There, we didn't know what granola was."