This is going to be traumatic, but I guess I have to do it.
Zea mays
You can call it corn or maize or anything else you like. I don't care. I call it 'revolting'. It never darkens my door or abuses my palate. Wretched stuff. But for the sake of completeness...
In Chinese, 玉米 (Mand: yù mǐ; Cant: juk6/6*1 mai5) or, less often, 粟米 (Mand: sù mǐ; Cant: suk1 mai5).
Two main varieties are sold. The regular yellow stuff as pictured above but also a white variety called 糯玉米 (Mand: nuò yù mǐ; Cant: no6 juk6/6*1 mai5), which means 'glutinous corn'.
This foul abomination does come in various colours, but the most prized, I'm told, is black. See! I told you! The work of the devil.
If you are too lazy to strip the ears from the cobs, worry not. You can also buy pre-stripped ears.
One problem the troubled people who actually buy this stuff have is that in supermarkets and markets it is usually shelved un-husked, so they have to stand there and strip it to see exactly which type of hell they are facing.
For the terminally lazy who can't be bothered to cook, evil street vendors littering every corner serve up cobs of vileness steamed over mobile stoves.
This pestilence turns up everywhere. Corn in stir-fries, soups, hot pots. Corn randomly appearing on your plate on internal and international flights.. Corn ice cream! I kid you not.
But most aggravatingly disgusting is that they throw corn kernels into all their pizzas. Even the friggin' wretched durian pizzas come with corn!
Perhaps the only sensible use they make of it is corn oil, a very suitable emollient with which to lubricate the chain of your bicycle etc, but apparently they cook with it!
I need a lie down and some major therapy now.
Back soon with something edible.
