My wife and I have eaten a great deal of Asian food over the years and I’ve realized that corn, or maize of you prefer, is absent. Other than those little baby corn things used in many dishes. Is there no tradition of using full sized corn in their cuisine, or have I just been ordering the wrong dishes? I’m including Korean, Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Japanese dishes.
I’d think that if the baby corn is available, the full sized version would be also. Or maybe the baby stuff only comes to Asia in big cans?
For what it’s worth, my wife and I had a kind of wedding reception in Nanjing and one of the beverages they served was a kind of corn smoothie! A bit odd, but not bad.
On a more normal note, I’m pretty sure I saw people corn on the cob as a fast food snack. Certainly the Chinese people I know in Canada like corn on the cob, even as a breakfast item. I’ve also heard of people eating watery cornmeal porridge (congee).
Of course, truly traditional Asian cooking wouldn’t include any maize at all, because it’s a New World crop. Some foods have been adopted by Asian cuisines, of course (such as chili peppers), but corn just seems not to have been one of them. It probably has a lot to do with climate: North America has a good climate for growing corn, while much of Asia has a good climate for growing rice.
That may be true of China, but it’s not for Japan.
For traditional foods, you can find it used in ramen or okonomiyaki, for instance, and it’s fairly liberally used in western foods that wouldn’t have them in their home regions (it’s a popular topping for pizza, for instance).
I’ve eaten corn on pizza in both Paraguay and Japan, but never in the U.S. It’s good. Corn has to have come late to traditional Chinese cooking, in that there couldn’t possibly have been corn in China in any quantity until - WAG - 18th century? That said, I use corn often in my home-made Chinese style stir fries. It’s especially good cut off the cob in chunks and thrown in the wok just long enough to get it hot and saucy.
When we lived in Japan we used to order mikusu (“mixed” in Janglish) pizza. We never knew what to expect, but it was fun and different. The only thing I couldn’t take on pizza was sea urchin roe.
Yep, it’s all over the place in Europe. Not sure about Italy, but I’ve seen it in Germany, Austria, and Hungary. In fact, Dr. Oetker (a German company) makes a frozen pizza line called “Big Americans”, and you can see corn on their version of the supreme pizza. And Here’s a Hungarian pizza joint called “American Pizza” with several pizza items that contain corn. (look for the word kukorica.) You probably don’t want to know what’s on that menu. There’s even a hot dog pizza with mustard and ketchup. shudder
Thanks for all the responses. I know it’s a new world crop, but didn’t realize that would affect it’s use in traditional Asian cuisine. After reading the responses I should have made that connection. :smack:
My BIL and his oldest son are planning a trip to China this Fall. I’ll have to ask them to watch for it during their travels.
the Philippines, which has spanish/mexican inlfuence, uses corn but sparingly, as with arroz a la cubana. in a less formal setting, it is a staple especially in the central islands where there are hardly any rice lands. corn is ground into grits and steamed a lot like rice. this simple style of cooking corn is also done in indonesia (as i’ve seen.) but habitual rice eaters treat it as a seasonal novelty and cook it on-the-cob.
It’s pretty common to find ears of corn being grilled over an open charcoal fire in the north of China. The corn there is definitely less sweet and more starchy.
Ah, dent corn, not table corn. They will learn and they will be happy for it. You can show them the way.
Corn, in all its forms, is my favorite food. Except for popcorn. Smells great, but the bits infest my gums for days afterwards.
A product that will improve their enjoyment of most forms of corn is butter, which doesn’t typically trigger a lactase deficiency. And salt. But on pizza could work, if you can deal with mozzarella.
I was watching the Hokkaido version of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and he mentioned that the noodles there are traditionally served with corn. I’ve never had it but it sounds delicious.
Speaking of Bourdain- IIRC, there was a China episode in which he ate a meal with an extended family of Chinese Farmers (The little boy was crying because he wanted to eat and the filming was taking too long). It seemed to be rather rustic and simple and consisted of a lot of small dishes of fresh vegetables very simply stir fried, and kernel corn cut off the cob seemed to be on that menu. It seemed to be very simply stirfried much as Arrajado describes, although what it consisted of, I have no real way of knowing.
Someone told me (in China?) that baby corn was the original variety, from the east Asian continent, and brought over the Bering Straits by the first Asian settlers to the Americas, and bred into its current varieties from that.
I’m guessing now that I’ve been told a total porky pie.
