History of Corn as Food

[Eastgate]

Well, no one has been making corn tortillas for thousands of years , since corn isn't old enough.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Eastgate (log)

[rancho_gordo]

Well, no one has been making corn tortillas for thousands of years , since corn isn't old enough.

When is it you think corn showed up?

[Jaymes]

Well, no one has been making corn tortillas for thousands of years , since corn isn't old enough.

When is it you think corn showed up?

Silly argument to have, I suppose, Eastgate, and this probably isn't the thread to have it.

But...

I've read that it's generally accepted by folks that care about and study these things that corn was being grown in the Americas as early as 3000 BC.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Jaymes (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Well, no one has been making corn tortillas for thousands of years , since corn isn't old enough.

When is it you think corn showed up?

Silly argument to have, I suppose, Eastgate, and this probably isn't the thread to have it.

But...

I've read that it's generally accepted by folks that care about and study these things that corn was being grown in the Americas as early as 3000 BC.

Yes. With a caveat, tho': the wild corn they started to domesticate produced tiny cobs, roughly 1 cm in length. It took farmers 1500 years worth of artificial selection to develop six inch cobs. The sizes you're used of now, that you'd want to be farming to produce any kind of decent amount of raw cornmeal, are fairly modern. No idea when the production of tortillas started but it's doubtful those tiny corn cobs of 3000BC would've provided the bulk of the diet.

[rancho_gordo]

Well, no one has been making corn tortillas for thousands of years , since corn isn't old enough.

When is it you think corn showed up?

Silly argument to have, I suppose, Eastgate, and this probably isn't the thread to have it.

But...

I've read that it's generally accepted by folks that care about and study these things that corn was being grown in the Americas as early as 3000 BC.

Yes. With a caveat, tho': the wild corn they started to domesticate produced tiny cobs, roughly 1 cm in length. It took farmers 1500 years worth of artificial selection to develop six inch cobs. The sizes you're used of now, that you'd want to be farming to produce any kind of decent amount of raw cornmeal, are fairly modern. No idea when the production of tortillas started but it's doubtful those tiny corn cobs of 3000BC would've provided the bulk of the diet.

I was under the impression that there were no examples of wild corn!

I don't want to be dismissive, but this argument is kind of silly. The foundation of the Meso American diet was corn, chiles and beans. We can argue for how many thousands of years, but they've been eating corn for a hell of a long time.