Have you not heard of corn on the cob? Just pull off the husk, boil, and eat.
Comment on Anon thinks about wheat
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
This phenomenon is even stronger with Maize. It requires heavy processing to be turned into glucose sirup or anything resembling edible food. By default, the grains are extremely durable and very difficult to digest.
But this is essentially what protects it from insects and fungus. Because the grains are so hard to digest by default, they can only be eaten by humans who have the tools to heavily process them before eating; for everyone else it’s essentially uninteresting as a food source and that prevents mold and insects.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I can’t tell if this is in jest or ignorance.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Sweet corn is a recent invention.
And great, you’ve got the months of July and August covered. How are you going to survive fall, winter, and spring? Corn doesn’t become a staple crop until it can be stored year round, maybe between years to alleviate famine.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
My point being that corn only needs to be boiled to be easy to eat. Going around like it’s completely inedible is ridiculous
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
My point being that corn only needs to be boiled to be easy to eat.
Sweet corn harvested at the milky stage, sure. But wait until the kernels are reddish brown and they won’t be great. And that’s a variety that was developed like 1500 years after the Romans were wiping their asses with sponges, so not relevant to the conversation about ancient prehistoric people developing a staple crop.
Go boil a jar of popcorn and see how practical it would be to try to eat flint corn with just some boiling.
Plus nixtamalization improves the nutrition of cornmeal so that it can meet more of human nutritional needs.
And your second “point” is a complete red herring. It applies to almost any crop outside of its harvest season.
It doesn’t apply to staple crops. Wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, beans, and potatoes can be stored long term, so entire civilizations came up around them millennia ago. Sweet corn harvested at an edible stage can’t be, at least not without refrigeration or canning technology.
All this is to say yeah, the civilizations built around maize as a staple crop had to figure out nixtamalization.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Corn (Maize) is a selected grass. (Teosinte) Wheat is also a grass (Emmer) which hasn’t been nearly as modified.
The american indigenous people cultivated and developed corn over 10,000 some years. An ear of corn can be boiled and eaten. Wheat? Not so much.
EvilCartyen@feddit.dk 2 days ago
You can absolutely boil wheat, so I am not sure I follow…
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I guess I meant more along the lines of: “An ear of corn can be husked by hand and boiled.” Individual processing is far more accessible and feasible compared the threshing, hulling, and winnowing processes of wheat.
Taldan@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What type of corn are you referring to? I’m not familiar with the history of corn, but what you’re saying doesn’t match my experiences with any variety
Dent corn is used as livestock feed, and is generally considered the less edible version. Sweet corn can be eaten by humans raw. Basically every variety I’ve ever seen can be eaten if boiled long enough
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sweet corn is a mutation that was only really cultivated in the late 1700s. Before that dent and flint corn were the norm. These corns require nixtamalization to soft the corn and then need boiling, grinding, and cooking to make something like tortillas.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Sweet corn is also harder to store if harvested at a flavorful stage. Up until canning became widespread, there was no easy way to store corn without drying it out. And
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Yeah, the effect is stronger for dent corn.
Source
I’m not sure what that number is for other cereals but i guess it’s less long.