Amazing Maize
British herbalist John Gerard doesn't know what he missed! In his 1597 Herball he reported of the grain he called "Turky wheat" that "wee have as yet no certaine proofe or experience concerning the vertues of this kinde of Corne; although the barbarous Indians, which know no better, are constrained to make a vertue of necessitie, and thinke it a good food: whereas we may easily judge, that it nourisheth but little, and is of hard and evill digestion, a more convenient food for swine than for man." We can forgive him for this opinion since his experience was probably with flint corn, which, although it may be as colorful as the Mexican ears pictured to the right, is even harder than our modern field corn. Sweet corn was apparently a mutation that didn't appear until 1779, and didn't become popular until the middle of the following century.
Our modern field or "dent" corn is a cross between flint and flour corn, the latter being a much softer and more easily ground variety. So field corn makes excellent corn meal, not to mention corn flakes, corn oil, cornstarch, corn syrup, corn liquor, etc. Farmers also chop the green stalks for ensilage to feed their cattle during the winter months. Ensilage derives its name from the fact that it used to be stored in silos, but is more commonly crammed into "silo bags" these days. (It can also be made from chopped grass.) By late winter, this stuff really reeks, but the cattle don't seem to mind! The majority of the corn crop raised in this country is still fed to livestock, in one form or another.
Corn silk, although it looks purely decorative, contains the "female" pistils that catch the pollen from the "male" tassel to produce kernels. Tea brewed from corn silk is popular with the Amish as a tonic and is also, according to Jethro Kloss, "one of the best remedies for kidney, bladder, and prostate troubles." A diuretic, it increases urination to remove excess fluid from the body.
Corn husks are still used to make dolls and corn cobs to make pipes. At one time, Native Americans also constructed masks, mats, and moccasins from those shucks.
Most of us are still much more interested in the succulent kernels, though. But, while we are juggling steaming ears and calling on somebody to pass the butter, there are some debts we should
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