Maize, or Indian Corn.
Description.—There can be little doubt that maize is of American origin. The discoverers of the new world found it cultivated by the aborigines, and from the fact that corn was the generic term then largely used to designate grain (in old English, "corn" means grain), they named it "Indian corn." Since that time it has been carried to nearly every part of the globe, and probably it is more extensively used than any other one of the cereals, with the exception of rice. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that it is the most prolific of the grains, and is adapted to the widest range of climate.
Maize was the chief food of the slaves of Brazil, as it used to be of those in our own Southern States, and is very largely consumed in Mexico and Peru. It was used very little in Europe until the Irish famine in 1847; since then, it has become a staple food with the poorer classes.
The varieties of corn are almost too numerous to be counted. For general purposes, however, they may be classified as field corn, sweet corn, and pop corn.
Corn is characterized by an excess of fatty matter, containing upwards of three times the amount of that element to be found in wheat. Corn requires stronger powers of digestion than wheat, and is unsuited to some stomachs.
The skin of the corn kernel is thin, and when subjected to milling processes, is included in the grinding. When well ground, it can be digested, with the exception of the siliceous coating.
Sweet corn and some of the field varieties, form a nutritious and favorite food while green. The mature grain is used in many forms. The whole grain, hulled, is an agreeable food. Hulled, broken, or split to various degrees of fineness, it is known according to the size to which the grain has been reduced as hominy, fine hominy, or grits; or, if finer still, as samp. Subjected to a process of still finer trituration, it forms meal. Cornstarch consists of the farinaceous portions of the grain.
On account of the large proportion of fatty matter contained in maize, it acquires, if kept for some time and unpleasant, rancid taste, occasioned by the usual change which takes place in fat when exposed to the atmosphere.
The new process granular meal, which is prepared from corn dried for a long period before grinding, becomes rank less quickly than that ground in the old way.
Maize meal is very largely consumed in the form of mush or porridge. This, in Ireland, is termed "stirabout;" in Italy it is called "polenta;" and in British Honduras it is known as "corn lob."
General Suggestions for Cooking—Most of the various preparations from maize require prolonged cooking to render them wholesome; this is equally true respecting mushes prepared from samp or meal, a dish which unfortunately some cook in bygone days saw fit to term "hasty pudding." Unthinking people since, supposing it to have been so named because of the little time required to cook it, have commonly prepared it in fifteen or twenty minutes, whereas from one to two hours, or even longer, are necessary to cook it properly. Hulled corn, hominy, and grits, all require prolonged cooking. The time for cooking these preparations may be somewhat lessened if they are previously soaked over night. They should, however, be cooked in the same water in which they are soaked.