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Can Humans Eat Corn?
What if it’s a tradition?
Back when I was a kid growing up my siblings and I were only served corn on one day of the year and that day was Thanksgiving Day. So naturally we looked forward to it since it was rare and special and because it was part of our Thanksgiving tradition.
According to our mother, back in the old country people did not eat corn. Corn was something fed to livestock — not humans! She vehemently refused to eat it, even on Thanksgiving.
But she served it to us on Thanksgiving because she was trying so damn hard to be a good American housewife. The traditional Thanksgiving meal was so foreign to her but she was determined to master it. To her it was an important part of becoming an American.
But in some way she screwed it up every single year. She never mastered it. Most years it was the turkey that she screwed up but she also occasionally ruined the gravy, the sweet potatoes, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, and quite often the pie. (They didn’t bake pies in the old country; they baked cake!)
It was all because she was trying too hard! To her, preparing a traditional American Thanksgiving Day meal was one of the biggest challenges of her life. She would get up at four in the morning and spend all day in the kitchen but every year she managed to screw up some aspect of…
