Corn or maize is as important to American history as any war or treaty. Its contribution was and still is vital for the American table.It is the best example of Indigenous love of the land and the sense of community shared with the early European settlers.
Pete Wells who usually writes the restaurant review for the Wednesday New York Times Food section penned this thoughtful and informative piece for today's section. Corn has been part of the North American diet for nine thousand years.It started in the Balsas River Valley south of Mexico City. It began as teosinte a kernal with a hard, inedible cover. Thanks to genetic mutations the kernels became softer and corn as we know it now was born. The plants traveled around the Western Hemisphere, even winding up in the Caribbean.The Hopi Indians of Arizona planted it a foot below the surface of high winter valleys in order to catch the meltwater , originally snow , that seeps into the ground. A fast growing grain was grown by the Mi'kmaq of Quebec and Maine.It was the Gaspe strain that ripens after only forty-five days of planting. Gaspe corn is still grown in Vermont with the help of Tony Van Winkle an anthropologist who teaches sustainable food systems in Greensboro North Carolina ans Vermont tribe Nulhegen band of the Coosuk Abenaki nation.
Yet it is the Wampanoag nation of Massachusetts that has the most important connection to corn. They showed the Plymouth Colony settlers how to plant corn after their wheat crop failed. The Pilgrims were on the brink of starvation when they were introduced to the bright red kernels of a strain called King Phillip's corn.It is still eaten today , although not as much as another heirloom strain called dent corn. Dent corn is still on our tables in the form of cornbread and muffins along with being crumbled in dressings and stuffings. It's steamed with molasses and eggs to create Indian pudding, a kind of custard first made by the colonists who first called ground corn Indian meal. Some strains were lost as the Indigenous were either slaughtered or moved to different parts of the country. There is one strains that stayed, thanks to the Davis Farm in Stonington Connecticut. The family obtained kernels in 1654 from a local tribe when their chief Uncas gave the kernels to Hartford CT founder Thomas Stanton. A few Indigenous women are planting heirloom seeds as their ancestors have done, hoping to bring back the corn their ancestors ate.
Corn is one of the most vital crop in the history of North America.It sustained the Indigenous for millennia . It also was a life line for the early settlers of Plymouth. It was ans still is the backbone of American cooking.
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