Shriveled corn kernels?
What you see: An ear of corn with large, irregular kernels as well as some shriveled-looking kernels.
What it is: A poorly pollinated ear of a large-kerneled variety of corn.
Eat or toss: Eat! The plump kernels are totally fine. The shriveled ones aren't harmful, they just never developed into full kernels.
The story:
What we have here may be a case of mistaken geography.
But, first, a fun fact: Each kernel on an ear of corn must be fertilized separately, with pollen attaching to the corn silks while the ear is still very tiny. Pollen grains travel down each corn silk until arriving at and fertilizing egg cells (here's a neat diagram of how that works and here's an equally neat video of corn pollination).
Considering that the average ear has hundreds of kernels, that’s a lot of pollen for the wind to distribute from the wheat-like tassels at the top of a corn stalk to the stringy silk clumps lower on the stalk. If pollination doesn’t happen, you get shriveled, not-quite kernels, as you see in the image above.
But there’s something else going on in this image, which brings us back to the question of geography. This appears to be an ear of choclo corn, Catherine Belisle, who is working on a PhD in postharvest horticulture science at the University of Florida, tells me. With fatter, starchier, chewier kernels that are several times the size of the sweet corn kernels you may be used to, this corn is suited to high-altitude equatorial climates like those in Peru's Sacred Valley (yep, the same place where you find Machu Picchu). Choclo corn enhances everything from ceviche to street food and stews. According to Specialty Produce, the corn even has its own festival.
But this ear of choclo corn was far from home. It was probably grown in the Mid-Atlantic of the United States, where a different climate might have made it harder for the South American corn to be properly pollinated. So the "kernels" that failed to pollinate are shrively bits, but those that did manage to get fertilized are plump in the classic choclo style.
SOURCES:
Catherine Belisle. PhD Candidate. Postharvest Horticulture Sciences, University of Florida
Finnegan EJ, Whitelaw E. Leaving the past behind. PLoS Genet. 2008 Oct;4(10):e1000248.
Peruvian Corn. Specially Produce.
This post was about corn
