50 Fun Facts About Corn

Outside North America, corn is usually known by what name?

Linnaeus took the word from the Spanish maíz, itself from the Taíno mahis.

Corn was first domesticated about 9,000 years ago in which present-day country?

Its wild ancestor, teosinte, is a short bushy grass that looks nothing like a modern cornstalk.

What is the wild grass from which corn was domesticated?

Just two genes account for most of the difference between the bushy wild plant and the single tall stalk of maize.

Native Americans grew corn alongside beans and squash in a planting system known as what?

Cornstalks held up the beans, beans fixed nitrogen, and squash leaves shaded out weeds.

The male flowers at the top of a cornstalk are called what?

Their pollen drifts on the wind to the silks lower down; each silk strand leads to one potential kernel.

Each strand of corn silk connects to what?

A cob can carry up to 1,200 kernels, so an ear needs a lot of silk to fill out.

Roughly how many kernels can a large cob of corn hold?

They grow in 8 to 32 rows, and the number of rows is always even.

Which pigments give yellow corn its colour?

Red and blue varieties get their colour from anthocyanins and phlobaphenes instead.

Which grain is produced in greater weight worldwide each year than any other?

World output passed 1.1 billion tonnes in 2020, most of it going to animal feed and industry rather than dinner plates.

Which country grew the most corn in 2020, with about 31 percent of world output?

China was second with roughly 22 percent, and Brazil a distant third.

How many major types of corn are there, counting popcorn, sweet corn, dent, flint, flour and pod corn?

Almost all commercial grain corn is dent; the sweet stuff you eat off the cob is a recessive mutant that fails to turn sugar into starch.

Sweet corn is picked while still immature, before its sugars turn to starch. What is that point called?

Field corn is left until the kernels are dry and dented; sweet corn must be eaten, canned or frozen fast.

Within a day of being picked, corn on the cob can lose up to what share of its sweetness?

The sugar starts converting to starch the moment the ear leaves the stalk, which is why farm-stand corn tastes better.

Old American farm wisdom said a good crop was on track if the corn was 'knee-high' by when?

Modern hybrids blow past that benchmark; a healthy field is often shoulder-high by Independence Day.

Soaking corn in alkali water, a process the Maya used, is called what?

It frees the vitamin niacin; Europeans who adopted corn without it suffered epidemics of pellagra.

Which deficiency disease broke out wherever unprocessed corn became a staple food?

The niacin in corn is locked up unless the grain is treated with alkali, a trick Mesoamericans discovered thousands of years earlier.

The dough made from nixtamalized corn, the base of tortillas and tamales, is called what?

Atole is the drink made from it; polenta and grits are the Italian and Southern US porridges made from plain cornmeal.

Mămăligă, a thick cornmeal porridge, is a national dish of which country?

Its cousins include Italian polenta, Brazilian angu, South African mieliepap and East African ugali.

Who first brought corn to Africa, where it is now the most important staple crop?

It arrived in the 16th century and spread because it grows in so many climates.

Early Spanish settlers refused to substitute corn flour for wheat in one particular food. Which?

Church doctrine held that only wheat could become the body of Christ, so wheat had to be shipped or grown at any cost.

Which of these US crops is a C4 plant, making it far more water-efficient than soybeans or alfalfa?

Its weakness is a shallow root system that leaves it vulnerable to drought right when the silks emerge.

By 1894, the labour needed to grow a bushel of US corn had fallen from four and a half hours to how long?

Mechanical pickers and binders arrived from the 1850s, but most corn was still husked by hand until 1940.

Roughly what share of US corn use goes to animal feed once silage and distillers' grains are counted?

Straight grain feed is around 40 percent; add ethanol by-products and forage and it is closer to two-thirds.

Bourbon whiskey must legally be made from a mash of at least what proportion of corn?

It must also be aged in new charred oak; Congress declared it a 'distinctive product of the United States' in 1964.

The 'HFCS 55' grade of high-fructose corn syrup is used mostly to sweeten what?

HFCS 42, with less fructose, goes into processed foods and cereals.

Corn flakes were created in 1894 by Will Kellogg for patients at what kind of institution?

His brother John ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium; the two later fought a legal battle over the patent.

Which former Battle Creek patient set up a rival breakfast cereal business to Kellogg's?

Kellogg went on to launch Rice Krispies in 1928.

Popcorn kernels expand to roughly what multiple of their original size when they pop?

Steam pressure builds inside the hull to about 135 psi before it bursts.

At roughly what temperature does a popcorn kernel finally burst?

The starch inside has gelatinised by then, so the escaping steam whips it into an airy foam that sets as it cools.

Kernels that fail to pop are known in the popcorn trade by what nickname?

They usually lack enough moisture to build up steam; rehydrating them before popping fixes it.

Charles Cretors, who invented the steam popcorn machine in 1885, ran what kind of Chicago shop?

He unveiled it at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the same fair where the first caramel corn appeared.

Which molasses-coated popcorn snack was introduced in 1896 by Louis Rueckheim?

His brother F. W. had shown a 'Candied Popcorn' at the 1893 world's fair three years earlier.

Wartime sugar rationing cut candy production. By what factor did American popcorn eating rise?

The Depression had already made popcorn a hit at five to ten cents a bag, and it saved farms like the Redenbachers'.

Which company received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag in 1981?

Popcorn consumption climbed again once popping it meant pressing a button.

Popcorn is the official state snack of which US state, thanks to an elementary school project?

At least six Midwestern towns separately claim to be the 'Popcorn Capital of the World'.

Popped corn from around 4,700 BCE was found at Paredones and Huaca Prieta in which country?

The Bat Cave finds in New Mexico, from about 3,600 BCE, are the oldest known in what is now the United States.

Candy corn was originally sold in the 1880s under what name?

George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company invented it; Goelitz, now Jelly Belly, began making it in 1898.

Which company makes about 7 billion pieces of candy corn a year, roughly 85 percent of the market?

Candy corn only became a Halloween fixture in the 1950s, once wrapped candy for trick-or-treaters took off.

The National Confectioners Association designates which date as National Candy Corn Day?

The day before Halloween, when the arguments about whether anyone actually likes it peak.

The 'World's Only Corn Palace', redecorated with corn murals every year, stands in which town?

At least 34 grain palaces were built across the Midwest between 1887 and 1930; Mitchell's is the only one left standing.

What is the name of the Corn Palace's fiberglass mascot, guarded since 2009 by DHS-funded cameras?

The 2004 DHS grant to a corn-covered arena drew national ridicule.

The record 65.8-acre temporary corn maze was cut near La Pocatière in which province or state?

Luc Pelletier cut it in October 2022.

A 2012 corn maze in Lacombe, Alberta earned a Guinness record as the world's largest what?

It covered about 7.2 acres and could be read from the air.

In Canada, corn dogs are commonly known by what brand-derived name?

Australians call them Pluto pups or Dagwood dogs, and in Japan they are simply 'American dogs'.

Which country's 1 lipa coin, minted 1993-2022, showed a cornstalk with two ripe ears?

Croatia adopted the euro in 2023. In the US Capitol, corn ears are carved into column capitals as a home-grown alternative to acanthus leaves.

What were Chilean protesters implying by throwing corn at military barracks before the 1973 coup?

Corn is fed to chickens, and chickens stand for cowardice; it was a taunt to depose Allende.

As of 2008, the top four US corn states were Iowa, Nebraska and which two others?

The Corn Belt is defined by level land and deep, nitrogen-rich soils rather than by any official boundary.

Rootworms and which moth larva have each cost US growers a billion dollars a year?

Much of today's crop is genetically engineered to resist them.

The Choctaw call cornbread bvnaha. What do the Hidatsa call it?

Cherokee and Seneca cooks enriched the batter with chestnuts, sunflower seeds, apples or berries.

Raw sweet corn kernels are roughly what percentage water?

The rest is mostly carbohydrate; a 100-gram serving is only 86 calories.