Customer Reviews

The Story of Corn

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fun, crammed compendium on how this food became ubiquitous--like the apple in our diet. It's forms and functions are seemingly unending. You'll be surprised how much and in what ways you've consumed it. Stock photos, quotes, recipes, postcards: a loving scrapbook and historical tale of corn. If you're a cook, you'll love it. It's like a year of Gourmet magazine with every issue on a different facet of corn. A fun gift to give.

This book fulfilled all my expectations. Excellent, thorough history of corn. Delivery was expeditious and condition of book was excellent.

Food historian Betty Fussell's survey of corn history blends folklore, anthropology, botany and social and art history to provide a lively blend of anecdotes and facts about world corn, from its influence on war and ritual uses in the Inca and Aztec worlds to its use as a key ingredient in different cultures' cuisines. The Story Of Corn isn't a cookbook; it's a specialized food history which will appeal across many different lines, from students of anthropology and sociology to culinary enthusiasts and history buffs.

This tome covers corn "ear" to toe. I love the sassy tone and contrarian viewpoints.

I must admit, I am actually a beet person (well, root vegetables generally) and bought this book to get ammo to goof on my corn enthusiast friends. But how the worm has turned! Corn and human history are inextricably linked, a bonding of nurture and social evolution. This book lays down the facts.

I guess in retrospect my "hubris" about beets was misguided and wrong. I now think the lesson I learned, whether it pertains to vegetables, politics, music or whatever, is that YOU SHOULD NEVER UNDERESTIMATE DIFFERENT OPINIONS. It's too easy to do, and is an easy way to miss out on fundamental truths.

In that sense, this book transcends it's core audience of corn folk (cornies?) and teaches a much deeper lesson if you are not really interested in corn - that well disciplined research into unfamiliar topics can instruct and delight the receptive reader.

Read it, enjoy and reflect.

I love corn. Whether it's cobbed, creamed, breaded, or popped. This book is non-stop corn!

Everything you want to know about corn is found in this book. And I mean everything. We see corn growing in fields everyday but do we actually stop and think about it? Do we pull over to the side of the road and LOOK at it? It's amazing how corn has been around longer than anyone will know. This book covers an overwhelming amount of detail. If you don't find it interesting you're just not a corn person. In fact, the only thing it doesn't answer is why I threw up over a bad cob one time. I don't throw up.