by Betty Fussell

From the publisher: 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 corn’s roles as food, fetish, crop, and commodity to those who have planted, consumed, worshiped, processed, and profited from it for seven centuries.

Betty Fussell received a Ph.D. in English literature, has written over a dozen books about a variety of foods, and penned food columns for The New York Times.

Winner of a Julia Child Cookbook Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals

University of New Mexico Press, 2004