USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) were the major staples of Native American agriculture, and were always grown together.

Detailed explanation-2: -Native Americans, including the Lenape of the Delaware Valley, used corn for many types of food. The foods which we know were derived from corn in the Iroquois nations include dumplings, tamales, hominy, and a ceremonial “wedding cake” bread. Today, corn has become the most widely grown crop in the western hemisphere.

Detailed explanation-3: -Along with potatoes, many other foods-including corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes, yams, peanuts, wild rice, chocolate, pineapples, avocados, papayas, pecans, strawberries, cranberries, and blueberries, to name a few, are indigenous to the Americas.

Detailed explanation-4: -Maize is a highly versatile food and was eaten at almost every meal by the tribes that produced it. Large quantities were eaten fresh during the summer. It was eaten raw from the stalk, roasted in the coals of a fire or baked into soups and breads (Niethammer, 135).

Detailed explanation-5: -Although the word “corn” comes from a general Old English word for a cereal seed (related to “kernal, ") the word “maize” has Native American origins: it comes from the Spanish version of the indigenous Taino word for the plant, maiz.