Blue corn
Zea mays · Grain
Top 10 pairings
Blue corn is a flint and flour maize whose kernels run deep slate-blue to purple-black, coloured by anthocyanin pigments rather than the carotenoids of yellow corn. Long grown by the Hopi and other Indigenous peoples of the US Southwest and Mexico, it is a dry, mature grain — not a fresh sweetcorn — milled into a sweet-scented blue meal that is nuttier, earthier and a touch sweeter than ordinary cornmeal, the backbone of tortillas, atole and piki bread.
Picking a good onedrag
Milky-sweet, just pickedStarchy, dry, dented
Shop freshEveryday bestBoil, grill or griddle - the sweetness still leads.
Husk and silkHusk green, silk brown but supple
The cut stalkCut stalk cream, surface dry
Weight in the handHeavy, tip kernels smaller but full
Smell at the cut endGreen and grassy, faintly sweet
These cues are Corn's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
36%
Edible part
102 g · husk, silk and cob off
283 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A domestic fridge holds it about 4× longer than the counter.
95–98%
Humidity
Bagged, not sealed
Airflow