I was driving in a very rural part of CT the other day with a realtor friend of mine looking at some property that may be coming up for sale and we saw a rather large cornfield full of rows and rows of corn. I asked when the harvest was and when we could extect to see it at the farmers market, and the realtor said “…Well that’s cow corn not people corn, so we’ll never see that at the farmers market…”
What? Can anyone explain the difference? Is there really a difference between corn? I’ve heard of indian corn and the like and I’ve even heard of cow corn, but I never asked what the difference was… Any ideas?
From what I’ve read, the biggest difference is sweetness: people corn is bred to be very sweet, feed corn isn’t. I would also think there maybe appearence issues as well (i.e. people corn will look prettier). I’m sure a midwestern Doper will chime in and give us a more complete picture.
Well I know the New England “people” corn we get around here has a tendency to be long and thin, whereas the corn we got in Kansas was the size of my forearm - think popeye. I’m sure the different breeds of corn out there are regional…I’d like the know the differences between “feed” corn and “our” corn.
Sweet corn has kernels that are thin-walled and easy for humans to chew. It has also been selectively bred for sweetness. Field corn or ‘dent corn’ has a much thicker hull and must be extensively processed if it is to be consumed by people. Sweet corn is harvested while it is juicy, but dent corn is allowed to dry on the stalk.
Just in case the above posts didn’t make it clear, feed corn kernels are many times the size of people corn. They are about the size of candy corn and those strains just grow that way. There are lots of different kinds of corn. My seed catalogs have feed corn, decorative cor, many kinds of sweet corm, and popcorn. There are just a bunch of different species/strains.
Actually, feed corn generally looks “prettier.” It has nice, big yellow kernels and the ears themselves are larger. Feed corn plants tend to be prettier, too. They’re taller and straighter and have bigger leaves.
One of the easiest way to tell from the road is to look how close the plants are. Sweet corn tends to be planted farther apart, making it easier to get to the ears. Feed corn is harvested by chopping the entire plant down, then separating the ears, so the feed corn is planted closer together.
All corn is the same species (zea mays) but there are lots of different varieties.
Field corn, or cow corn, can be an is prepared and eaten just like sweet corn, people corn, when the ears are immature. However, as has been said, the kernels mature quite rapidly and become what might be termed al dente before long. When mature the kernels are hard, dented on the top, rectangular in cross section and completely fill the cob with no gaps between them. Sweet corn kernels are entirely different in maturity. The get hard but they stay relatively round, leave spaces between them so they don’t completely fill the cob.
Popcorn is a variety that has kernels with high resistance to the escape of water vapor. When the kernel is heated the temperature rises to the boiling point of water and the vapor can’t escape. Continued heating keeps the temperature rising and eventually the kernel bursts from the pressure which Wiki says can be up to 9 atmosphere or about 135 psi.
I was raised on a dairy and ate many a meal of field corn. As mentioned, it has to be picked as soon as the tassels turn brown or it is quite tough, but I far prefer it to sweet corn. The flavor is much heartier and robust than the sweet variety. You could even say it is cornier.
In Mexico (certain parts, anyway) at street stands you can buy elote (corn) with all kinds of neat creams, salts, chilis, and so on. The first time I went with my wife to get one, I was excited – these were good looking pieces of corn. Upon biting into my piece of corn, I was horrified to discover that it was animal feed! My wife, though, said it was perfectly good, normal corn, and that she was finally happy to have her good, native corn that wasn’t way the hell too sweet! Now I just tease her for eating animal food.
Now that you mention it, I remember having met some folks from eastern Europe (Poland, IIRC), who were offended at being served sweet corn because it was “pig food”.
Field corn is used for almost any food product. The Bio-engineered corn is not for direct human consumption in the USA. It is approved as animal feed. Field corn was eaten fresh on the cob by my parents as children, but they won’t touch the stuff as adults.
Sweet corn was just sweet corn until super sweet corn was bred, and I believe that was in the seventies. One is the white and yellow mixed varieties. The white kernels were the sweetest, and later were bred to some all white varieties. The other one is a hybrid that is all yellow and like all hybrids will not grow true if used as seed corn the next year. I don’t remember which of the two hybrids loses the super sweet properties when cross pollinated with regular sweet corn or field corn. You need to crow that variety a certain distance from other types of corn.
Indian corn is about the same as field corn, but has many different colors. Their are heirloom varieties that are red or black or blue and not called Indian corn, but are for practical purposes field corn also. This is what those natural tortilla chips are made from that are blue or red.
Popcorn is another type of corn and comes in about three types. The yellow has the largest ears and the largest kernels when popped. The next down in size of ears and popped kernels is the white popcorn. The remaining type is in the miniature varieties that I consider all in it to be the same. The strawberry variety has ears about two inches long, and small popped kernels. Their kernels are strawberry red. Another variation has ears about three inches long and is multicolored. This is often sold in stores for fall decorations, and mislabeled as miniature indian corn. You can pop it after Halloween, if the moisture content is in the correct range. You test a few kernels for popping. Too much moisture and you here escaping steam from the kernels. Too little moisture and it doesn’t fully pop or pop at all. You can put the kernels in a jar at the time most pop correctly.
Some varieties of corn can have 4 or five ears, be 12 feet tall, and have sucker roots reaching into the ground from a couple feet up the stalk. The population of Mexico eats the smut fungus when immature, It’s enough in demand that some places raise corn to be a host to sell the fungus. The field corn is used as feed in two ways. The whole stalk is cut up into chunks and stored in a silo. This is what is called silage. It’s feed to cattle, I don’t know what else is fed this. The other type is stored after it is dented, which refers to the end of the kernel sinking in as it dries out and the kernels harden. These kernels are later ground into eighth inch and larger pieces to be fed to different animals. The pigs and horses may be feed the dried ears of corn.
The corn can get much taller for some varieties, than I list above. The 12 foot is the higher end for most common varieties. The majority of corn stalks get maybe 3 ears.
Corn syrup is produced from field corn.
Let me ad that sorghum looks like corn when grown in the fields, but is used differently. I don’t know to what degree they are related, but am mentioning them because it’s mistaken for corn when people see it. Sorghum is boiled down into a syrup and used in place of other sweetners. The closest comparison is to molasses. Broom corn used for making brooms is a low sugar sorghum. The processing of sorghum for either use excludes the other use, since you biol the stalks to get surghum syrup. The syrup is normaly refered to only as sorghum.