Corn and Culture

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Recommended: The relationship of food and culture

A rise of culture and tradition often came down to food. Food was the principle part of culture. It depicted how the people of that culture would live out their days. As the food source changed, so did the cultural practices. This cultural phenomenon often is connected to the food pertaining to the main calorie source of that culture. For many cultures, the major calorie and nutrient supplying crop was corn. Corn has grown from a primary source of calories in culture to an inescapable source of starch and sugars in culture, especially in American culture.
Corn was a vital piece in culture, and it has been woven into culture since 7000 BC. The people of Mesoamerican culture perfected modern corn for its purpose of producing higher quantities of corn. Corn held higher food quantity than the other world grains like wheat, rice, or barley (Gonzalez). Because of its high production, corn became the main source of sustenance for many families. It was made into tortillas as a family’s subsistence base. The majority of calories consumed by families of this time came from maize. Despite how many years have gone by, many families still live off of corn. However, the new version of eating corn is through high fructose corn syrups and corn-fed meats (King Corn). Both cultural versions, the current and the past, hold corn as an important piece to the economy. Modern cultures still thrive on corn, however these cultures do not revere it as past cultures did.
As well as being a key part to a culture’s diet, maize connected social responsibilities to the fundamental concepts of a culture. Before the Catholic religion took residence on the lands of Mesoamerica, ethnographic sources reveal evidence of a plethora of rituals p...

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...erican Association for the Advancement of Science, Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1713608
(McAfee) Corn Culture and Dangerous DNA: Real and Imagined Consequences of Maize Transgene Flow in Oaxaca, McAfee, Kathleen, Journal of Latin American Geography, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2003, Published by: Conference of Latin American Geographers.
(Gonzalez) González, R. J. (2001). Maize has a Soul. Zapotec science: farming and food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca (pp. 103- 117). Austin: University of Texas Press.
(Mintz) Mintz, S. W. (1985). Sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history. New York, N.Y.: Viking.
(King Corn) Cheney, I. (Director). (2008). King corn [Documentary]. USA: Docurama Films:
(Piperno) Piperno, D., & Ranere, A. (2009). Starch Grain Analysis. Piperno, 106(13). Retrieved March 1, 2014, from www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0812525106

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