Corn History

Nearly 9,000 years ago, corn, also called maize, was first domesticated from teosinte, a grass native to Mesoamerica. Teosinte's rock-hard seeds were barely edible, but its fibrous husk could be turned into a versatile material. Over the next 4,700 years, farmers bred the plant into a staple crop, with larger cobs and edible kernels. As maize spread throughout the Americas, it took on an important role, with multiple indigenous societies revering a "Corn Mother" as the goddess who created agriculture. When Europeans first arrived in America, they shunned the strange plant. Many even believed it was the source of physical and cultural differences between them and the Mesoamericans. However, their attempts to cultivate European crops in American soil quickly failed, and the settlers were forced to expand their diet. Finding the crop to their taste, maize soon crossed the Atlantic, where its ability to grow in diverse climates made it a popular grain in many European countries. But the newly established United States was still the corn capital of the world.