Episode 7 - Corn is Life

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Listen to "007 - Corn - Is Life" on Spreaker.

 Link to the Episode:

Episode 7 - Corn is Life

Recipe for Corn & Rye Bread (a nutty sweet taste taste actually!)
(fyi - rye is a gluten grain).  

A quick bread recipe - no yeast: Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book Corn Rye Quick Bread

A yeast bread recipe: Portuguese Broha di Milho. (milho is corn)

My old school freezer case succotash - no longer exists!  I'm okay with that.  But the corn cube lives on in mixed vegetables.

Some tasty Awesome succotashes:

Southern Succotash with Bacon
Chef Elizabeth Reese
A quick Cajun Version:

From a home cook on 
Just a Pinch - with Crawfish

Corn Pone:

A pretty reasonable version for the 17th Century
Ancestors in Aprons

Sweet Potato Pone (Taty pone):
Here's a modern Trinidadian version - so sugar and spices!

From Delicious Magazine - via
A Spoonful of Sugar blog


A fancy tasty modern cornmeal pudding pone!
(It hits all the 17th Century notes... raisins, nutmeg, allspice, rich sauce, pudding & corn!)

Caribbean Cornmeal - Pone
from Immaculate Bites


The Variety of Corn items:

Whole Hominy/Posole - 

Dried - and slow
Canned - and quick















Grits - 

Quick and Filling

Slow, flavorful and creamy









Masa v. Maseca v. P.A.N. v. Masa Harina/ Dried Masa 

Fresh Masa - Make your own with 
Mexican Please
,
If you have a local tortillera (tortilla factory) you can usually purchase it fresh.  Some Latin markets will carry it - or Mexgrocer.com


The "kleenex" of dry masa or  masa harina
a mash-up of Masa and Seca or "dry"
There are other masa harinas out there - but this will always be around.
This corn has been nixtamalized/treated with a base


P.A.N - precooked cornmeal
typically used in Venezuelan Arepas
(note: this corn has not been treated with a base)

The rest of the confusion:
In the US - there is corn meal - which is finer than grits, and has not been treated with a base.  This goes into cornbread (pone) and hasty/Indian puddings and Scrapple.

Then there is corn flour - which is the whole corn kernel ground to flour.  It finds its way into sweet puddings as a thickener and a few other places.  Corn flour - of the the whole kernel exists in Africa and India - and has uses there as well.

Corn starch is just the starchy part - no germ.  This is what is used to thicken sauces.  It was not around in the 17th century.

BUT!  In England, and many former British Colonies - what is known as Corn Starch in the US is called Corn Flour - just the starchy bit - with the germ removed.  So on The Great British Bake Off - when they are making puddings and thickened creams and arguing about "yes or no cornflour" they are using what Americans call corn starch.  Got it?

Interesting Media:

Harris, Jessica B. High on the Hog. USA: Bloomsbury, 2012

Twitty, Michael W. The Cooking Gene. NY: Harper Collins, 2017

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2nd Ed. NY: Random House, 2006

Pete's Dragon (1977 Version) Passamaquoddy musical number.
(I was a little shocked at how well this parody of the Traveling Medicine Show stands up in the time of "Influencer Culture".  Yes this is largely a silly movie.  Best to watch as a wide-eyed child.)



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