| The Story of Corn | 
 enlarge | Author: Betty Fussell
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.51
You Save: $9.44 (38%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 188574
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 367
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 8 x 1.1
ISBN: 0826335926
Dewey Decimal Number: 633.150973
EAN: 9780826335920
ASIN: 0826335926
Publication Date: December 15, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
The Story of Corn is a unique compendium, drawing upon history and mythology, science and art, anecdote and image, personal narrative and epic to tell the extraordinary story of the grain that built the New World. Corn transformed the way the entire world eats, providing a hardy, inexpensive alternative to rice or wheat and cheap fodder for livestock and finding its way into everything from explosives to embalming fluid. Betty Fussell has given us a true American saga, interweaving the histories of the indigenous peoples who first cultivated the grain and the European conquerors who appropriated and propagated it around the globe. She explores corns roles as food, fetish, crop, and commodity to those who have planted, consumed, worshiped, processed, and profited from it for seven centuries. Now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, The Story of Corn, is the winner of a Julia Child Cookbook Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Written in a lively and nontechnical style.Library Journal Fussell has clearly done a good deal of research and a lot of travelingpeering over a precipice at Machu Picchu, descending into a restored ceremonial kiva of the Anasazi people in New Mexico, visiting the sole surviving corn palace from the Midwest boosters glory days of a century ago.Kirkus Reviews
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Kind of A-maize-ing November 16, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
 Corn breadth October 21, 2006
This tome covers corn "ear" to toe. I love the sassy tone and contrarian viewpoints.
what a book June 22, 2006
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
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.
Best book about corn you can find! January 28, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I love corn. Whether it's cobbed, creamed, breaded, or popped. This book is non-stop corn!
A specialized food history January 6, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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