popping maze corn (aka, popping maze maize!)

[asakiyume]

Last week mallorys_camera and I visited Mike's Maze, and I purloined an ear of corn from the walls of the maze. This corn is obviously not sweet corn for eating boiled or grilled--it's long in the tooth and deep yellow and gives the impression of being the sort of corn you might grow for milling into cornflour, or some other use like that. I don't have a picture of it still on the cob, but here it is as kernels in a bowl:



I was wondering what it would be like to try to pop it. I know that nowadays corn for popcorn is bred specially for that purpose--but what would this corn do? (Here is a picture of kernels of popping corn, for comparison)



I also know that you're supposed to dry popping corn before popping it, if you get it on the ear. (If you get it in a bag, it's already been done for you.) I wanted to speed that process up, so I put my kernels in a warm oven for a while. Was it enough time? Who knows! An uncontrolled variable creeps in.

I do my popcorn in a frying pan on the stovetop, so that's what I did this time. It sizzled for a long time, but eventually I heard some pops! Not that many, but some. I took the lid off the frying pan...



You can see that some of them started to bust open, but couldn't quite free themselves. Here's another picture:



For comparison, here's what my ordinary popping corn popped up to:



Here's the amazing thing, though: those not-quite-free popped kernels of maze corn (maze maize; I love it) taste ~wonderful~. They have a real tortilla-y, corn-chip-y flavor, whereas ordinary popcorn, let's face it, is not the most flavorful food in the world. My maze maize popcorn I happily ate just as it was, whereas I'm hard pressed to eat ordinary popcorn without sprinkling melted butter, salt, or herbs on it (or, if I'm in England, sugar). Furthermore, with the maze maize popcorn, even the kernels that looked just semi-swollen, with no hint of the white cloud on the inside showing through, were light and crispy when I bit into them--no risk of cracking a tooth!

Overall, I'd say it was less like eating popcorn and more like, I don't know, a sort of fluffy nut? But very satisfying! Very flavorful. I feel empowered with secret knowledge. I CAN POP ALL THE CORNS.

Comments

[sonia]

That is so cool! I'm glad it made a good treat.

[asakiyume]

I was delighted! I hadn't expected that it would turn out so tasty.

[rachelmanija]

I now want not-popped maze corn.

[asakiyume]

LOL, if I go back there, I'll see if I can snatch another ear--or look for a corn maze near you!

[rushthatspeaks]

I looked at that first pic and thought huh, for the first time the colorways of candy corn make sense to me.

[asakiyume]

Now that you mention it, yes!

(I'm a little freaked by how much like *teeth* they look)

[sovay]

I'm a little freaked by how much like *teeth* they look

It hadn't occurred to me to think of them as teeth, but now I want to know what smiles with them.

[asakiyume]

That's a lovely piece of incipient horror flash right there.

*

[minoanmiss]

*makes a note*

[sartorias]

Those sound YUMMY!

[asakiyume]

They were a very fun surprise!

[amaebi]

That's fascinating and useful-- thank you!

[asakiyume]

My pleasure!

[sovay]

Overall, I'd say it was less like eating popcorn and more like, I don't know, a sort of fluffy nut? But very satisfying!

That's so cool!

I cannot really eat popcorn, but I still admire it from a distance.

[asakiyume]

<3 Thanks for coming and enjoying from a distance, I appreciate it!

[minoanmiss]

This post is a glorious celebration of corn. :D

[asakiyume]

I MEAN! It's one of the Big Three cereal crops (with wheat and rice), and it originates here in the Western Hemisphere!

[gale_storm]

Amaizing maze maize experiment! Too bad that they didn’t pop into large fluffballs of popcorn!

[asakiyume]

I kind of like them the way they are? They're not as pretty as popcorn, but they have so much flavor, and the experience of eating them is really pleasant in a different way.

[gale_storm]

Huh, okay. Well, so long as you enjoy eating ‘em, how they look doesn’t matter!

[asakiyume]

My feeling exactly!

[mallorys_camera]

Hmmm. Now I'm wishing I had purloined an ear of corn, too. 😊

[asakiyume]

I can send you half my kernels! It was a joint venture, after all. And I only used a bit of what I have for this experiment.

[mallorys_camera]

Wonderful thought. But I will probably never pop them, so your should probably save the postage. 😊

[asakiyume]

Will do ;-) I will think of you while I eat them.

[athenais]

That is pretty wild! I would never have thought to try popping it, or really, purloining maze maize. Because I do not lead a life of curiosity, I fear, but also because we don't have any corn mazes around here since corn isn't grown commercially in this part of California. But I'm delighted it tasted so good and was such a successful experiment.

[asakiyume]

I tried it a second time today, and it worked out much the same--crunchy, almost popped kernels--and maybe today I'm sliiiighly less enthusiastic about the taste. It *is* pleasant... but maybe not quite the corn-flavor-paradise I was rhapsodizing about in the entry.

I'm sorry about your lack of corn mazes, though! Are there other sorts of mazes? I once walked a sunflower maze.