Corn - Mountain Gold
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A few years ago I was a proud member of the Future Farmers of America. The emblem for the FFA is a cross section of an ear of corn because that is the vegetable that is grown in every state in the union. Today it is an embattled vegetable, yet the history of corn is old and complex and essential to life.
Way back in the Bible times, farming was a little different than it is in the 21st century. Barley was the main grain crop of the day – remember that the boy in Jesus’ crowd carried 5 small barley loaves and 2 fishes for his lunch; Jesus took those meager provisions and miraculously fed a great crowd. Yet barley is mentioned in the King James Bible just 37 times compared to 102 mentions of corn. However, a deeper look at languages finds that in British English, corn refers to most any grain – it’s more of a generic term.
Still, the natives of North and South America were indeed enjoying the hard kernelled grain we know today – or something very similar since there was neither genetically modified nor hybridized. It was the natives who introduced corn to the earliest explorers and settlers. The crop spread quickly across Europe and soon became as essential to those communities as it had been to the Americans.
Fast forward a few centuries and we find the Scots-Irish settling in Appalachia. Their hilly, rock-strewn fields were rich in humus and readily produced corn for the cows, mules and men.
You see, corn is that unique crop that can foster any domesticated farm animal and equally supports human life. Now, my research tells me that corn is deficient in niacin which is essential for converting our food into energy. Perhaps that’s why our people ate cornbread and milk – I doubt they could have even pronounced niacin yet somehow they combined two perfect foods that were readily available to in their mountain home. I find that amazing.
Today, scientists have gotten ahold of corn and modified it to resist pests, withstand chemicals and yield ever greater harvests. We find corn in everything from soda pop (both the plastic bottle and the sweet drink), the carpet we walk on and the makeup on our faces (per FarmProgress.com). It’s come a long way from the pone turned out of an iron skillet and crumbled in sweet milk. I said in the beginning that it’s an embattled vegetable because the long-term effects of the genetic modifications are suspected of causing great harm and corn has crept into so many aspects of our lives that we can scarcely avoid it. Still, whether it’s heirloom or hybridized, corn is as central to our modern American lives as it was to the earliest American lives.
