In many locations across the Trail, especially here in the Midwest, it’s sweet corn season! Yum!
We know that most native tribes would have grown corn, or maize, and used it as a staple grain in their cooking. But would they have had sweet corn?
Yes, it seems. John Ordway wrote in his journal on December 30, 1804 that the Mandans “have a Sweet kind of corn which they Boil considerable of it when it is milk and drys it which they keep through the winter Season.”
Sweet corn is the result of a naturally-occurring recessive mutation in the genes which convert sugar to starch inside the kernel. Unlike field corn varieties, which are harvested when the kernels are dry and fully mature, sweet corn is picked when immature.
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