Ingredients

Maize

Citation Formats

General Reference

Food and Drink Atlas. "Maize." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/maize.

APA Style

Food and Drink Atlas. (n.d.). Maize. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/maize

BibTeX

@misc{foodanddrinkatlas-maize,
  author = {Food and Drink Atlas},
  title = {Maize},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/ingredients/maize},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The staple grain of Mesoamerican and, after the Columbian Exchange, much of world cuisine, known as corn in North American usage. Domesticated from the wild grass teosinte, it underlies the tortilla and tamale traditions of Mexican cuisine and, ground and processed with alkali (nixtamalization), was the nutritional base of pre-Columbian civilizations across the Americas.

Facts

Disputed

Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

7000 BCE to 5000 BCE 1

Genetic and archaeobotanical studies converge on the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico as the domestication site, but estimates of the exact date range across roughly two millennia depending on method, so a range is given rather than a single year.

Origin Region

The Balsas River valley, southern Mexico 1

Cross-Tradition Connections