Corn

[Deleted]

Why does it have such a bad name? I've heard people say that it's only good for cows to eat. I disagree!

I still remember my sisters carrying corn bundles from our farm to home back in India. We would cook the corn in an open fire and eat it just like that. Or we'd take the kernels off the cob, dry them and then cook them in a pan with butter. Some of the pop corn would burn, but most of it was good to eat.

It's so versatile. What other ways are there of cooking corn?

[cristina]

Actually, I don't think nature intended for cows to eat corn.

Most of the corn grown in North America though, is sub-par corn grown specifically to use as feed for the cows, chickens and pigs that later end up at our dinner table. It is thought that by eating corn fed beef etc, we are getting far more sugar in our diets than we should be. Basically, we are becoming walking corn chips.

That said, I do love corn on the cob, especially grilled sweet corn. I also love corn pudding (and it loves my hips too. ;D )

[Don Cuevas]

Corn! We'll be in New York State and New Jersey for a couple of weeks next month. We will eat a lot of sweet corn.
For the most part, corn in Mexico is nether sweet nor tender. We are surrounded by cornfields where we live, and occasionally we'll be treated to boiled young ears of just picked sweet corn. But it still isn't the same.

[lagatta]

I wonder why - because Mexicans used corn mostly to make tortillas and other such preparations? Corn is just as traditional among the Iroquois Confederation people up where you'll be going, though I imagine it was first grown in Mesoamerica.

Pre-contact Amerindian peoples, even in the complex civilisations of what is now Mexico and Central America, did not live the sedentary life that has developed in the global North and some "less poor" parts of the global South since the mid 20th century. I think getting more calories and dietary sugars was probably a boon.

Don Cuevas, is sweet corn in season in June? That strikes me as very early.

[Don Cuevas]

"Don Cuevas, is sweet corn in season in June? That strikes me as very early."

Maybe not, but we're hoping so. It might be trucked in from Georgia or another Southern state.

[Deleted]

Corn is something I eat almost exclusively in salads these days.

[Deleted]

May 10, 2010 22:25:42 GMT cristina said:

Most of the corn grown in North America though, is sub-par corn grown specifically to use as feed for the cows, chickens and pigs that later end up at our dinner table. It is thought that by eating corn fed beef etc, we are getting far more sugar in our diets than we should be. Basically, we are becoming walking corn chips.

It seems that way. There is corn in so many things. Corn syrup, corn starch, corn chips, corn flour, etc. etc.

It's such an easy vegetable to grow, maybe that is one reason it's so popular. I still prefer my corn cooked on the cob on an open fire...

[spindrift]

I love eating corn but I rarely see it for sale. It's used in Indian cookery. I will post a recipe for Coconut Corn taught to me by my Indian mother-in-law. I've eaten a lot of it in Kenya where Africans sit by the side of the road, roast corn cobs over charcoal and sell it. Yum.

The reason why it has a bad name is because vitamin B3 (niacin) is biologically unavailable in corn for cell metabolism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin

Diseases, such as Pellagra, are caused by a chronic lack of B3. The poor of some countries subsist of a corn diet so they suffer accordingly.

[imec]

I learned from my Indian neighbor to grill it and then season with lime juice and chili and sometimes a little cumin - delicious! I also sometimes grill it and brush with a mixture of butter and Thai sweet chili sauce - mmmm!

[Deleted]

Corn also has a bad name because it is one of the crops that requires the most water to grow, yet it is often grown in places that require intensive irrigation.

[Don Cuevas]

"The reason why it has a bad name is because vitamin B3 (niacin) is biologically unavailable in corn for cell metabolism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin

Diseases, such as Pellagra, are caused by a chronic lack of B3. The poor of some countries subsist of a corn diet so they suffer accordingly."

That is why Mexicans nixtamalize their corn; soaking it in an alkaline solution that removed the outer coating and frees the niacin to where it can be utilized. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization. Combined with beans, nixtamalized corn products form a complete and nutritious protein.
How could such a process have been discovered?

[hwinpp]

There's a dish here called 'phot chien'.

The cobs are de- corned, the corn then covered with flour and then fried. Quite good.

[fumobici]

And I would have been expecting Korean soup.

[bazfaz]

The French don't really understand sweetcorn. They think it is maize to fatten ducks for foie gras. Sweetcorn is at its best picked and cooked straight away but in supermarkets I have seen it packaged with a sell-by date two weeks hence.

I like it just served with butter, s & p. But if the ears are too miserable for that I cook them, take the kernels off, mash about a quarter of them, add chopped chilli and an egg. Then I make fritters.

[tillystar]

Dripping with salty butter for me please. Delicious.

[kerouac2]

Proof that the multinationals can be convinced to take local desires into consideration. No salt! No GM contents! Grown in France!

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