Heartland foodways

From Oaxaca to the world, or how maize became corn -- Out of one, many: The unity and diversity of corn -- Birth of the Midwest and the corn belt -- Cities, transportation, and booming business -- Sow, hoe, harvest -- From field to table -- Hooves, feathers, and invisible corn -- Popcorn: America's snack -- Transformations -- Embracing change, and questioning change -- Celebrating corn -- Living with corn: Early 1800s to early 1900s -- Living with corn: Early 1900s to present -- Eating corn: Recipes and histories -- Questions, issues, and hopes for the future

Food historian Cynthia Clampitt pens the epic story of what happened when Mesoamerican farmers bred a nondescript grass into a staff of life so prolific, so protean, that it represents nothing less than one of humankind's greatest achievements. Blending history with reportage, she traces the disparate threads that have woven corn into the fabric of our diet, politics, economy, science, and cuisine. At the same time she explores its future as a source of energy and the foundation of seemingly limitless green technologies. The result is a bourbon-to-biofuels portrait of the astonishing plant that sustains the world