In praise of corn, a Thanksgiving essential
The Indians, as we innocently called them in the days of my youth, put their name to it: “Indian Corn.” Somehow, “Native American” or “First Peoples Corn” just doesn’t do it, so here let us observe this now-verboten usage. Technically, Indian Corn (known as calico or dent corn too, for its coloration and dents in the kernels) is one variety of maize, first cultivated, they say, in Mexico thousands of years ago. Columbus, who called the natives “Indians” because he was looking for India, brought back seeds to Europe in the 1490s; they did not take. The Plymouth colonists in the 1620s, from whose early travails the American feast of Thanksgiving emerged, grew Indian corn courtesy of the local Wampanoag tribe. It no doubt helped them survive when the English peas ran out.
