On Food and Cooking

and among biologists as Zea mays, was
domesticated in Mexico some 7,000 to 10,000
years ago from a large grass called teosinte
(Zea mexicana), which grows in open
woodlands. Unlike the Old World cereals and
the legumes, which human selection altered in
relatively minor ways, corn is the result of
several drastic changes in the structure of
teosinte that concentrated pollen production at
the top of the plant and female flower
production — and cob and kernel production
— along the main stalk. The large size of both
plant and fruit made corn agriculture
relatively easy, and corn quickly became the
basic food plant of many other early
American cultures. The Incas of Peru, the
Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico, the cliff
dwellers of the American Southwest,
Mississippi mound builders, and many
seminomadic cultures in North and South
America depended on corn as a dietary staple.
Columbus brought corn back with him to