Friday, October 8, 2010

Indian Corn explained


Thanks to Google, the Philiadelphia Examiner and Wikipedia  I found out what makes Indian Corn different than the sweet corn we normally eat .  Indian corn is a type of corn that stores well and can be ground for corn flour or corn meal.

Indian corn is flint corn, also known as maize, zea mays or calico corn..  It is a hard starch corn.  If you eat it, it won’t hurt you; but it doesn’t have much taste, although new edible strains are being developed every year. 
 
Indian corn comes in many different colors.  Native American growers have produced multi-colored, magenta, red, scarlet, pink, yellow, orange, bright blue, dark blue, light blue, black, purple, maroon, brown, white, and even cream colored maize. Over the years, growers continued to cross-breed corn that produces new colors. Corn kernels have different colors because their individual genes. Each kernel on the cob is a separate entity with their own genes, yet they form on the same cob; just like brothers and sisters in the same home, each is different, but they live together. The colors actually attract and repel pests. There are exotic maize varieties, as well as, variegated maize. Although today, we use Indian corn for fall decorating, some people buy the corn to use as popcorn, and to grind up as flour. If you buy the blue Indian corn, you can also grind it up and make blue corn flour tortillas.  
 
Note:  Thanks so much for visiting my little blog!  If you've written and I've not replied, its due to my being crazy busy this week!  I will reply, just a little behind in anything other than trying to get my adult son's room and personal belongings organized.   Thanks for your understanding:)

3 comments:

an encourager said...

Very interesting!

Daryl said...

Fascinating, I had no idea it was so involved ...

Average Girl said...

Thanks for the corn lesson... I had no idea about that.