Sweet Corn

History

Corn is the most successful plant domestication in human history, transforming a wild grass called teosinte into the crop that now feeds billions. Archaeological evidence places corn domestication in the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico around 9,000 years ago, where indigenous peoples selected for larger kernels and cobs over thousands of generations. The transformation was so complete that modern corn cannot survive without human cultivation—it cannot disperse its own seeds. Corn spread throughout the Americas, becoming the foundation crop of great civilizations: the Maya, Aztec, and Inca all built their empires on corn agriculture. To many Native American peoples, corn was sacred—the Hopi call themselves "People of the Corn," and the Maya creation story describes humans being formed from corn dough. The "Three Sisters" planting method—corn, beans, and squash grown together—represents thousands of years of agricultural wisdom, with corn providing structure for beans, beans fixing nitrogen for corn, and squash shading the soil. Columbus brought corn to Europe in 1493, and within a century it had spread to Africa, Asia, and across the globe, becoming a staple crop on every inhabited continent. Sweet corn is a relatively recent development. While Native Americans had sweet varieties, modern sweet corn breeding began in the 1700s when colonists discovered varieties with higher sugar content. The development of "supersweet" (sh2) varieties in the 1950s-60s revolutionized the market, creating corn that stays sweet for days rather than hours after picking. Today, sweet corn is the third most popular vegetable in America, with peak season arriving each summer when roadside stands and farmers' markets overflow with fresh-picked ears. The saying "put the pot on before picking the corn" reflects the traditional understanding that corn's sugars begin converting to starch the moment it's harvested—though modern supersweet varieties have extended this window considerably. From ancient mesoamerican farmers to modern plant breeders, corn represents humanity's most ambitious and successful partnership with the plant kingdom.