MAIZE, MASA, & MEXICAN MYTHOS Making Traditional Corn Tortillas from Whole Corn Tonia Sing Chi Though corn is pervasive in our modern diets much as it was in traditional American Indian diets, our relationship with this plant, as well as the plant itself, has changed profoundly. Corn, or maize, was first domesticated from a wild grass called teosinte. The earliest corn cobs were found at archeological sights in Tehuacan and Oaxaca valleys in southern Mexico around 1500 BC. By then, agriculture was well established and reliance on wild plants had diminished greatly. Maize became the main crop for many American Indians. As they relied on it as a dietary staple, they developed an intimate physical and spiritual relationship with the grain that supported their livelihood. The seeds were carefully planted, the plants grown and harvested with intent, the grains processed and prepared by hand, and the food consumed as a source of nourishment. American Indian civilizations thrived on corn such that it became intrinsic to their cultural identity. By the time of the new world discovery, American Indians had selected and developed many different varieties of maize. Unfortunately, many of these varieties became extinct with the introduction of Yellow Dent corn, which dominated all other corn varieties for no reason other than its outstandingly high yield. Today, corn is valued mostly for its ability to produce in quantity. Genetically modified varieties, government subsidies, and modern farming technology have made corn easily the foremost seed and industrial grain in North America. Although modern Americans consume corn in substantial amounts, the grain in its whole, raw form is essentially obsolete to the consumer. Corn is no longer sought after as a nourishing food, rather it is something that is highly processed and manufactured into questionable food products. Corn is the most widely grown genetically modified food, with an estimated 90 % grown in the United States genetically modified for insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, and high yield. Only recently has there been elevated awareness and concern surrounding the inescapable, yet virtually unrecognizable presence of corn in our modern diets. Despite our dependence on corn, most of us, including the corn farmers themselves, would not know what to do with the grain if we encountered it in its whole form. In today's world, we rely on heavy machinery to grind our corn into edible forms, high-tech chemical processes to mutate it into highly palatable sweeteners, and animals to convert it into corn-fed meat, eggs, and dairy. While it is undeniable that corn is an amazingly versatile plant, the true reason that these highly processed corn products exist at all is that corn is heavily supported by government subsidies. These subsidies guarantee that farmers are given a fixed amount of money for each unit of crop they grow at the expense of the tax payer's dollars, disregarding typical market forces such as supply and demand. The original intent was to help small farmers, and to provide a financial buffer for the risks involved in farming. But today, these government handouts are predominantly benefiting the larger, wealthier commodity producers. Furthermore, farming technologies and genetically modified plant varieties have made farming much less risky, and much more profitable. Farmers are successfully producing more and more, collecting government 1 payments directly proportionate the quantity they've grown. The result has been a massive overproduction of corn— twelve billion bushels of it. Our dependence on the health devastating high fructose corn syrup, the nutrient stripped corn starch, the sickly corn-fed animals, the energy negative ethanol, and many other process intensive corn products, was essentially invented as a way to dispose of this massive surplus. In other words, we don't grow more corn because there is a demand for more high fructose corn syrup, we make high fructose corn syrup because we have too much corn. And as we no longer grow corn for direct human consumption, we have forgotten how to simply eat the grain without further industrial processing. Of course, corn was successfully grown and eaten far before the support of government subsidies, the invention of industrial machinery, and the rise of modern food processing technology. A process known as nixtamalization developed along side increased maize cultivation. This process yields an intricate host of synergistic benefits-unlocking the corn's flavor, digestibility, nutritional content, and grindability, rendering it viable as a staple food source-in its whole form. When the kernels of corn are steeped in either calcium hydroxide or wood ash lye, the alkaline solution dissolves the pericarp, the hard outer layer of the kernel, allowing the grain to more readily absorb water. As the corn swells and softens, it becomes easier to grind—an important consideration for populations relying on hand processing food without the assistance of modern industrial machinery. On a nutritional level, the calcium hydroxide solution significantly increases the calcium content of corn. Both alkaline solutions reduce levels of the antinutrient phytic acid contained in the pericarp and destroy harmful mycotoxins that can be present in moldy corn. Most notably, the process selectively improves the quality of corn protein available for human enzymatic digestion. Corn contains four types of proteins, classified by their solubility characteristics-albumins and globulins, extractable in slightly saline solutions, zein, extractable in ethanol solutions, and glutelin, extractable in alkaline solutions. Although steeping in an alkaline solution diminishes the nutritional content of corn, it significantly improves its nutritional quality, decreasing the solubility of zein, which is deficient in proteins that break down into the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan, and increasing the solubility of glutelin, which is rich these proteins. Nixtamalization further converts the bound niacin (vitamin B3) into a form that is bioavailable. Niacin is an essential human nutrient, meaning it cannot be synthesized by the body in a quantity sufficient for normal functioning, and must therefore be obtained through dietary means. Aside from consuming niacin rich foods, this can also mean consuming foods high in tryptophan, which can be synthesized by the liver into niacin, and is incidentally released during the nixtamalization process. Deficiency in niacin leads to pellagra, a disease characterized by dermatitis, gastrointestional disorders, dementia, and eventual death. European colonists unknowingly interpreted the steeping of corn in an alkali solely as a means of milling the corn by hand. As they had access to more powerful grinding machines, they dismissed this process entirely. It was only following the pellagra pandemic in the early 1900s, which resulted from populations worldwide adopting the cultivation of corn as a staple without embracing the traditional processing technology, that nixtamalization gained its recognition as an essential component of processing corn for sustenance-based human consumption. The wisdom and artistry of the nixtamalizing process is further reflected in its refined palatability: nixtamalizing corn enhances its flavor and unleashes its characteristic nutty and earthy aroma. Oaxacan Green Corn Stalks 2 THE CORN ::: FAMILY: GRAMINEAE / POACEAE GENUS / SPECIES : ZEA MAYS Corn seeds of different varieties all have the same basic anatomy consisting of the germ, the endosperm, and two outer layers, the aleurone and the pericarp. The pericarp is a thin outermost protective coat containing most of the seed's fiber. The aleurone exists under the pericarp, and encloses the endosperm. Though it is typically only a single layer of cells thick, it contains a large portion of the corn's proteins. It also contains anthocyanins responsible for the red, purple, and blue pigmentation of many colored corn varieties. The germ contains the embryo as well as the majority of the seed's oil. The endosperm, comprising of the largest tissue in the seed, is made of two different types of starch- hard starch and soft starch. The proportion of these hard and soft starches varies depending on the variety, providing a basis for the modern nomenclature used to describe corn. Flint corns have mostly hard, "flinty" endosperm, enclosing only a small portion of soft endosperm. Flour corns have mostly soft, "floury" endosperm enclosed by a thin layer of hard endosperm. Dent corns were originally a cross between flour corns and flint corns, and have a relatively proportionate amount of both hard and soft endosperm. Unlike flint and flour corns, however, the soft endosperm exists as a column surrounded by hard endosperm, rather than being completely enclosed by it. As dent corn seeds dry, the soft endosperm contracts more than the hard endosperm, causing the kernel to dent. The soft endosperm is always white, while the hard endosperm can be white or yellow, resulting from the production of the carotenoid pigments. Flint corn, flour corn, and dent corn are all types of field corn, meaning they are intended to be harvested in the mature dry kernel stage. Flint corns are extremely tough and difficult to process without nixtamalization or modern technology. They are also easier to grow, displaying superior disease, insect, and weather resistance, as well as shorter growing seasons. Flour corns are much easier to process by simply grinding, but along with being less hardy, can also be more difficult to dry and store. Dent corn is the only commercially grown field corn type, and by far the most widely available. However, the commercial dent corn grown today, called Yellow Dent Corn, is relatively flavorless, having been bred for high yield and disease resistance rather than nutritional quality and palatability. Yellow Dent Corn is used to make everything from ethanol, to high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners, oils, emulsifiers, thickeners, and extracts in our processed foods, to cheep corn-fed meat. Only a tiny portion, an estimated 2%, is grown to be consumed as a cereal grain- mostly in the form of corn meal.