Ruby Queen Sweet Corn
As soon as we entered the grocery store, we knew what we were making for dinner: Ruby Red Kabobs. What we saw was a unique variety of corn called Ruby Queen, which inspired Kevin to create these beauties! His grilling expertise and eye for great looking food helped him craft these kabobs with just the right amount of spice and sizzle! The red kernels added a unique twist of color that would brighten up any dish that would normally use yellow sweet corn. Sticking with the red theme, Kevin also made himself a steak with red onions and red cabbage. The red cabbage charred up nicely, and complimented the sweet flavor of the corn well.
After our delicious crimson dinner, we watched the movie Interstellar (which was great by the way!). It made me curious about corn’s beginnings, because it told a story of its end. In the movie, the climate on earth has changed drastically, causing people to rely on only a few failing corn crops for survival. Although scientists worked around the clock to figure out how to help the crops thrive in the dustbowl that the Midwest had become, there efforts were going nowhere. Amazingly, corn has come farther in the last 5,000 years with only breeding techniques than it could in this futuristic movie with all the new technologies of recent times including genetic engineering.
But before any of this could happen, corn had to go through a millennia of transformations. It has evolved into one of the most important crops on the planet, and is now used in over 500 different applications! Starting out as a simple grass, it originated in Central America. Yellow, white, blue, and yes, even red varieties spread from the ancient Aztec Empire to what is now the Corn Belt of America. Most of these colors have since been pushed out to make room for the dent corn that is mass produced here, so it is no surprise that specialty varieties stand out to the average consumer. Maybe we will be lucky enough to find some fresh blue corn on our next trip to the store! Now what will we do with that…
Eat Well,
Emily
P.S. Coming soon to the Eat Well Blog: Do I Need to Worry About GMOs?