I’ve been reading the archives and enjoyed the info on corn and maize, 14, April, 1978 but my childhood question is still not answered. In grade school, our history books told us that corn(maize) was unique to America, but on the farm in Texas, my grandfather grew a crop of MAIZE that had a single head of grain per stalk. This head of grain was composed of grains similar in size, shape and color to B-Bs, as in Daisy B-B guns. Corn (the American yellow ears) and maize are two different animals! haha I dont think people eat maize. Why does our educational system teach the kids such wrong crap?
I will hazard a guess that ‘corn’ (the yellow stuff we buy in grocery stores) is the same species as the stuff your grandfather grew - just a more cultivated variety.
‘Natural’ versions of many plants aren’t much like the ones we eat.
manyolkars. Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board.
You nicely gave a date for Cecil’s column, and by searching the archive, I am gonna post a link here to the column so that others can read it. LINK
Manyolkars, in the U.S., “corn” and “maize” are the same thing. “Maize” does not refer to the wild kind, and “corn” to the modern big yellow ear of corn. “Maize” is just the word that people outside the U.S. use to refer to what we call “corn”. But in the U.S., “corn” and “maize” mean the same vegetable.
The educational system is not “teaching our children such crap”.
Your granddad undoubtedly was growing some kind of open-pollinated heirloom corn. Native Americans had hundreds of different varieties.
I have found that in the UK, corn != maize (and sometimes, corn does not mean “US corn” at all), which has resulted in quite some confusion at times…
In Swedish, and AFAIK the rest of the Germanic languages, korn = barley.
In the Southern U.S., part of the corn is used to make hominy. And from hominy, we get GRITS – a staple in our diets.
(But I’d rather have Louisiana boudin! Welcome to SDMB, manyolkars!)
“Corn” = “predominant grain”. In UK English (which is a Germanic language) it normally means “wheat”, although, under US influence, it is beginning to mean “maize” in certain contexts.
We have a corn maze on the outskirts of town. A corn maze in Kansas, imagine that!
Nope. In Norwegian and Danish, korn just means grain. Any grain. Barley is bygg in Norwegian.
Lots of people dancing in this thread, none of them have ever seen maize
my grandfather grew a crop of MAIZE that had a single head of grain per stalk. This head of grain was composed of grains similar in size, shape and color to B-Bs
If I might ask-Why the ten year gap in responding?
manyolkars is the Golden Earring of the SDMB.
"In our world, said Eustace, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
(C.S. Lewis)
As was said 10 years ago, in the US corn = maize. There are many varieties of maize, many of which don’t closely resemble the ears of corn that most of us are familiar with. Your grandfather was simply growing one of those varieties. But they all are very closely related strains of the same basic plant.
manyolkars, maize/corn is a plant species that has been cultivated for centuries and now includes many different varieties of plant that have different appearance.
In particular, popcorn is small kerneled with a hard kernel and round.
These are all varieties of maize.
So did your father raise maize? Sure, he probably raised a variety of maize. Is the plant your father raised the only one legitimately called maize? Absolutely not. It is just one variety (i.e. subspecies) of the maize plant, i.e. species Zea mays.
You may have to wait another ten years for a response, y’know.
Now! Let’s be fair: nine years and 365 days.
Or maybe he meant for it to be ten years and forgot last year was a leap year?
Powers &8^]
Look at this site: http://www.gmushrooms.com/Posters/IndianCorn.htm
All of these are varieties of corn… also known as maize. Did your grandfather’s crop resemble any of the varieties pictured on this poster? The fact that he used the words “corn” and “maize” to refer to different crops doesn’t mean that the rest of the world does.
So, what kind of corn do they grow in Brigadoon?