As far as harvest ingredients go, this really is THE BIG ONE!! It is the Mother Grain. It was probably under some type of cultivation 12,000 years ago! It was the backbone of a the great Mother Culture: the Olmeca. I don't think there is a plant that is used for food more revered or more sacred than corn! I also cannot think of one that had such a wide regional distribution in pre-contact times than this strange form of grass. Forms of corn were farmed as far north as Canada, and in pre-Incan Andes the use of maize was ancient.
The term "corn" comes from the English word for grain of European, Middle Eastern and African origin, most notably wheat. It is a sort of generic term for "grain." The word Maize has been applied to the cobbed grass that most Americans call corn; it is a Spanish corruption of the Taino world "Mahiz," which is the Arawak word for "corn."
The whole history of corn is so varied and such a sacred and widespread story in the Americas that a history of it in the confines of these "harvest" post would be at least twice and long as the longest of them so far. That is a post for another time, when there is enough "mental space" to do it justice. Here are some worlds of corn across the Americas and some interesting varieties:
|
Abenaki Red Corn |
|
Ancient Anasazi cultivar, actually grown from a source found in New Mexican cave |
|
Modern Anasazi Red Sweet Corm, dried |
|
Aztec Black Corn |
|
Modern Aztec Corn |
|
Modern Caribbean Sweet Corn |
|
Cherokee Long Ear Popcorn |
|
Cherokee Squaw Corn |
|
Cherokee White Eagle Corn |
|
Chippewa Flint Corn |
|
Dakota Dried Corn |
|
Dakota Blue/Black Popcorn |
|
Golden Bantam Corn introduced formally in 1902, the stock had bee around for at least 50 years. It's bi-color give away it's native ancestry |
|
Hopi Blue Corn |
|
The four varieties of Hopi corn, one for each sacred direction. The white corn is used ceremonially for a harvest corn roast with King and Queen cobs every fall. |
|
Isleta Pueblo Blue Corn Kernels |
|
Iroquoise Strawberry Corn |
|
Various type of Plains or Lakota corns, including pod corn, second from the bottom |
|
Lenni Lenape (aka Delaware) Blue Corn |
|
Bloody Butcher, probably from a Lenape cultivar, 1800 West Virginia |
|
Various types of Maya corn and popcorn |
|
Native Mexican popcorn |
|
Different types of Mexican Corn and Popcorn |
|
Miami 8-Row White Flint Corn |
|
Narragansett Flint Corn |
|
Navajo Dineh Blue Corn |
|
Oaxacan Green Dent Corn |
|
Ojibwe Flint Corn, dried and treated |
|
Onieda White Corn (I know it looks yellow) |
|
Osage Silver Queen White Sweet Corn |
|
Pawnee Long Corn |
|
Several varieties of corn grown at the Pueblos in New Mexico |
|
Peruvian Black Corn, from a Quechua (Inca) crop |
|
Seminole Corn drying |
|
Original Tohono O'odham cultivar, called Papago Corn |
|
60 Day Corn Tohono O'odham (Papago) cultivar |
|
Zuni Black Corn |
|
Zuni multicolor corn |
Looks great! this is nice and this article is very helpful
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing