Home Fires

[hellywelly4]

Last night's episode showed the people harvesting a field of sweetcorn. I always thought this wasn't hardy in the Uk until fairly recently. I think even then it was only grown for animal fodder. Anyone know?

[PeelerPal]

Maize is a huge uk farming product

[hellywelly4]

Yes, but was it in the 1940s?

[tonyav]

. Sugar-rich varieties called sweet corn are usually grown for human consumption as kernels, while field corn varieties are used for animal feed,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize

[Hopkirk]

When I was on a French exchange, they couldn't believe we are corn on the cob. They said it was pig food.

[Hopkirk]

.. ate ..

[Baldric]

Remember as a kid, late 50's early 60's the farm across the road from us grew acres of it, and very nice it was too.

[Buenchico]

It was definitely grown here in East Anglia (for human consumption) around 1960. (That's as far back as I can go!).

The 'history' section here suggests that it only really became popular here in the UK after WWII (perhaps due to the large number of US servicemen in the country?) but it also indicates that the crop was in Europe by the 15th century:
http://www.eattheseasons.co.uk/Archive/sweetcorn.htm

[mikey4444]

I can recall my Dad growing it in the late 50's, although it never amounted to much, being a bit stunted and unappetising, so he went back to growing spuds.