Pea is a pulse, vegetable or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name Pisum sativum in 1753. Some sources now treat it as Lathyrus oleraceus; however the need and justification for the change is disputed. Each pod contains several seeds (peas), which can have green or yellow cotyledons when mature. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and develop from the ovary of a (pea) flower. The name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea, the cowpea, the seeds from several species of Lathyrus and is used as a compound form for example Sturt's desert pea.
Sweet corn, also called sweetcorn, sugar corn and pole corn, is a variety of maize grown for human consumption with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring recessive mutation in the genes which control conversion of sugar to starch inside the endosperm of the corn kernel. Sweet corn is picked when still immature and prepared and eaten as a vegetable, unlike field corn, which is harvested when the kernels are dry and mature. Since the process of maturation involves converting sugar to starch, sweet corn stores poorly and must be eaten fresh, canned, or frozen, before the kernels become tough and starchy.
Popcorn is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated. The term also refers to the snack food produced by the expansion. It is one of the oldest snacks, with evidence of popcorn dating back thousands of years in the Americas. It is commonly eaten salted, sweetened, or with artificial flavorings.
A lima bean, also commonly known as butter bean, sieva bean, double bean or Madagascar bean, is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans.
Most people in the world love these. The snap pea, also known as the sugar snap pea, is an edible-pod pea with rounded pods and thick pod walls, in contrast to snow pea pods, which are flat with thin walls. The name mangetout can apply to snap peas and snow peas.
Green beans are young, unripe fruits of various cultivars of the common bean, although immature or young pods of the runner bean, yardlong bean, and hyacinth bean are used in a similar way. Green beans are known by many common names, including French beans, string beans, and snap beans or simply "snaps." In the Philippines, they are also known as "Baguio beans" or "habichuelas" to distinguish them from yardlong beans.
Cachapa is a traditional dish made from maize flour from Venezuela. Like arepas, they are popular at roadside stands. They can be made like pancakes of fresh corn dough, or wrapped in dry corn leaves and boiled. The most common varieties are made with fresh ground corn mixed into a thick batter and cooked on a budare, like pancakes; the cachapa is slightly thicker and lumpier because of the pieces from corn kernels.
An heirloom tomato is an open-pollinated, non-hybrid heirloom cultivar of tomato. They are classified as family heirlooms, commercial heirlooms, mystery heirlooms, or created heirlooms. They usually have a shorter shelf life and are less disease resistant than hybrids. They are grown for various reasons: for food, historical interest, access to wider varieties, and by people who wish to save seeds from year to year, as well as for their taste.
Corn kernels are the fruits of corn. Maize is a grain, and the kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable or a source of starch. The kernel comprise endosperm, germ, pericarp, and tip cap.
Huminta, huma or humita is a Native South American dish that dates back to pre-Hispanic times. A traditional food from the Andes, it can be found in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina. It consists of fresh choclo pounded to a paste, wrapped in a fresh corn husk, and slowly steamed or boiled in a pot of water. In Bolivia, it is known as huminta and in Brazil as pamonha. Humitas are similar to Mexican uchepos, or tamales colados, which are also made with fresh corn; but they are only superficially similar to tamales, which are made with nixtamalized corn (masa). Colombia's envueltos or bollos are also similar to humitas. They share a link to the juane, which can be made with corn but is modernly made with rice.
Canjica, mugunzá or mungunzá is a Brazilian sweet dish, associated with winter festivals, which in Brazil is in June.
Corn fritters are fried cakes of a dough or batter made of, or containing a featured quantity of maize (corn). Originating in Native American cuisine, they are a traditional sweet and savory snack in the Southern United States, as well as Indonesia where they are known as perkedel jagung or bakwan jagung.
Mazamorra or masamorra is the name for numerous traditional dishes from the Iberian Peninsula and Hispanic America.
Blue corn is a group of several closely related varieties of flint corn grown in Mexico, the Southwestern United States, and the Southeastern United States. It is one of the main types of corn used for the traditional Southern and Central Mexican food known as tlacoyo.
"Cacahuazintle" or "cacahuacintle" is the name of an old heirloom variety of white dent maize (corn) originating in Toluca, Mexico. It has a large ear with grains that are more white, round, and tender than the typical field corn grain. The dried grains are soaked and/or cooked in water with lime or wood ash, then rinsed thoroughly to remove the outer seed coat as well as any traces of the alkali salts —this is an ancient process called nixtamalization. This creates a fresh, wet hominy, which can be dried for later use or ground into a flour called masa. Masa can be used to make tortillas, tamales, atole, pozole, etc.
Tiny but Mighty Popcorn is an American brand of heirloom popcorn, introduced in 1981, when Iowa farmer Richard Kelty founded K&K Popcorn. Iowa farmers Gene and Lynn Mealhow later purchased the company in 1999, and subsequently renamed it.
Popo is a foamy and cold drink typical in the south of the state of Veracruz and some areas of the state of Oaxaca, like the basin of Papaloapan or Istmo. Its main ingredient is cocoa, which is sweetened with sugar or panela, and is mixed with water; also azquiote called cocomeca en Oaxaca is added, and/or chupipi, both foaming agents. Some recipes frequently flavor it with cinnamon and/or anise, and they thicken it with maize dough or rice.
