History
A descendant of the wild grass teosinte, corn is native to the Americas, and central and essential to many cultures. Teosinte looks very different from what we think of as corn today, with narrow cobs that resemble cereal grain heads more than modern ears. These differences illustrate the work of Native Americans, who domesticated corn from its wild beginnings.
Why it matters
Corn is a dominant crop in the Midwest, and most varieties are grown to feed livestock or for the biofuel industry. GMO corn—both for feed and food—has created confusion about the benefit of all corn crops, but corn is a critical component of regional grain systems. When grown in rotation with other grains and legumes, corn contributes to diversified farm economies, and is valuable for food and distilled beverages.
Corn has many stewards and advocates working to support its historical significance and the multitude of cultural connections to this plant, while pushing back against the harms of dominant corn production systems.
Description
In regional food systems, most corn seed is either hybrid or open-pollinated. Of these, common types include flint, dent, and popcorn.
Hybrid corn does not mean GMO. Hybridization has been occurring for more than a century through traditional plant breeding methods: crossing two plant parents to create offspring more vigorous than either parent alone. Combining traits creates seeds with targeted advantages, like disease and pest resistance, and higher yields. However, farmers do not save seed from these crops because the seeds of the hybrids will not breed true to their parent plants, and many hybrid varieties are protected by plant patents.
Open-pollinated (or OP) corns are those that farmers can save seed from that maintain the same characteristics year after year. This allows farmers to select the ears of corn from plants that express their preferred traits—like maturity, color, standability, and disease resistance—and begin to integrate those traits into future crop generations.
Uses
Function: Understanding how corn works as a food requires some background information.
- Flint corns (ex: Wapsie Valley, Early Riser, Floriani) are very hard, with glassy kernels used for making polenta. They are all open-pollinated, and many low yielding, with interesting colors and flavors that are typically more nutrient dense, with less corn flour and higher protein content.
- Dent corns have an indentation (or dent) in the kernel, which gives this type of corn its name. Dent varieties (ex: Bloody Butcher, Reid’s Yellow) are starchier, grown to make masa for tortillas and tamales, cornmeal, and grits, and are better suited for distillery production.
- Many types of corn planted for regional grain systems are open-pollinated composites of both dent and flint types, chosen by farmers to suit their farm conditions and market needs. While there are some general rules about which kinds of corn are dent and which are flint, the way corn readily pollinates with its neighbors can make it difficult to distinguish one type from another.
- Grits, polenta, and cornmeal
- Grits and polenta are coarsely ground corn cooked into a porridge. Each type comes from different corn, and carries different cultural affiliations. Often, the corn flour is sifted off during the milling process.
- Grits are typically made from dent corns, and are most commonly yellow or white, according to the color of the corn ground to make them. A dish from the Southern United States, yellow grits historically had a rural association, while white grits had a more urban affiliation. Heritage corn varieties give other colors of grits, including red, blue, and green.
- Polenta is often made from flint types of corn, but there is no authority to codify this. An Italian dish, polenta was historically made from other cracked cereals like spelt and wheat prior to the introduction of corn. Taragna is one such example, a combination of coarsely ground corn and buckwheat traditionally found in Northern regions of Italy.
- Cornmeal is ground corn, typically made from dent types that have a softer endosperm. Cornmeal can be milled very finely for corn flour or very coarsely, depending on a miller’s or cook’s preferences. Cornmeal and corn flour are used to make cornbread, griddle cakes, and many other foods.
- These foods come from nixtamalized corn, a process of alkalizing in lye or wood ash to soften and remove the outer layers of the kernels. Nixtamalization increases nutrient absorption, a fact that didn't transfer culinarily as corn traveled beyond the Americas, and beyond Native communities within the United States, resulting in niacin deficiency (pellagra).
- Once nixtamalized, corn is ground while still wet to make masa. Tortillas are made from this wet mixture, or from dried masa that has been rehydrated.
- Hominy or pozole is the name for whole kernels of nixtamalized corn, and is used for soups, stews, and other savory dishes. Hominy grits are grits made from nixtamalized corn.
Flavor profile: Like all grains, corn flavors vary with kernel color and plant type; soil and season conditions also impact tastes. The flavors of corn grown for regional food systems are generally much brighter and bolder than those grown as commodities.
Nutritional info: Stone ground cornmeal is high in fiber, B vitamins, and minerals.
