Although maize is not native to Europe, it was adopted with great enthusiasm by many communities as soon as it was introduced to them by the explorers of the New World. Sometimes it reached them by circuitous routes - not simply off the boat from Panama - so it goes under names like ‘Turkey corn’, the new consumers thinking it came from the east, not the west.

Maize was especially valuable to those regions where wheat was not the grain of first recourse, where, for instance, rye and