Indian Corn
Indian corn (Zea mays, Poaceae)
British English: maize
American English: corn
Ibicencan: dacsa
French: maïs
Canadian French also: blé d'Inde
Indian corn is of Mesoamerican origin and was widespread in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans, often in mixed cultures with beans. It does not exist in the wild. Nowadays it is grown all over the Earth. It is a nitrophyte. Since it is anemophilous, it is convenient to plant it in several rows so that the pollens carried away from one plant can reach the stigmas of another.
The whole grains as well as the flour of it have a lot of uses in different cuisines as a vegetable or a cereal. In case of coeliac disease (gluten intolerance) it is recommended instead of wheat. Since some aminoacids are hardly present, it is recommended to eat corn together with pulses like beans.
An infusion of the styles used as a tea has diuretic effects.
In the seedbank in Can Busquets we grow the traditional Ibicencan white maize, together with Ibicencan beans in the same field.
In the Casita Verde we grew a variety that has no patents and can be sowed year after year anew. It has been distributed by several environmental and agricultural organisations in Germany in order to avoid the spreading of genetically modified maize with its unknown effects on health and its economic threat to peasants by the way of patent laws.
