Edible Gold

So there's this scene in Pocahontas ( the Disney one) where

John Smith asks  our native american beauty 

whether she has seen gold...he described it as

  golden yellow in colour,hard and a substance that you take

out of the ground,Pocahontas not knowing what he was talking 

out pulls about an ear of corn and says " sure we have plenty of it ".    

 Last night I was laying on my  bed and it kinda hit me that corn is probably still like edible gold to a good deal of the world's population.Of course I am only speaking from my experiences  in the last two years or so ...but two and a half continents later I've realised that corn,whether its white or yellow is a real staple for a lot of people.

Let's begin with Mexico and the corn tortilla,a corn tortilla is to them what a slice of  white bread is to  North Americans.They serve it at lunch,dinner and breakfast...now I must confess the tortilla at breakfast was a bit new to me,but no matter what the meal was, there were usually warm corn tortillas wrapped in cloth at the table.W ho needs a boulangerie  when you could have a  Tortillaria! ( no kidding...its the tortilla bakery,there was one in the village where I stayed in Mexico)


 In Venezuela...there's what I call the arepa flour,its some kind of ground corn ( ok I  just looked it up and according to Wikipedia its actually some kinda of precooked ground corn flour) We were served this two different ways at breakfast,they would boil the flour/ grain and make a porridge to drink and then make like little fried breads  out of it that we would then fill with egg or jam and cheese.And if that weren't enough you could also get an empanada...made of the same flour but  bigger,longer,filled with beef and of course..deep fried.                                                                               Arepas

Now I'm in South Africa...and what is the food of the passes?You guessed it more corn..now here they call the ground corn  mielie meal and when its cooked...pap. Pap can me a porridge or the consistency of a pudding and then there's a third way..I actually have'nt had it the third way but its supposed to be crumbly. But you get my drift...pap is a staple,and not just in South Africa but in many other African countries as well.

<- crumbly pap

He he..in my desperation to have arepas again I have made the " pap pattie" which was just me making arepas using pap,I discovered that it only works with the instant mielie meal though...anything else and you're asking for trouble..trust me.

Now back home in Barbados we use the yellow corn  or corn meal,the same one Americans might a make cornbread out of.You can make a porridge out of it ( also know as..pap) or you can cook it with water and some okras to make cou cou..kinda of like a pudding consistency,top it off with  some steamed fish and voila! You have the national dish of Barbados.


So you see...corn really is edible gold.



P.S for all you people who can't  eat wheat and have gluten allergies..are you really surprised?