Path of Maize to New Zealand

WALT: write a information report.

The Growing of Corn in New Zealand

James Cook (a.k.a Capt. Cook) discovered New Zealand in 1769.  According to Yen, we can infer that the European settlers were the one’s who brought maize (corn) to New Zealand. Christopher Columbus, a spanish explorer, took corn from America to Europe. Corn was introduced to New Zealand as early as 1772. When the Europeans arrived, Maori replaced their traditional crops with those brought by Europeans. Their main crop was soon potatoes.

In New Zealand, corn is grown from September to February because those are the warmer months. There must be no frost. Corn requires warm/tropical climate. The soil temperature must be between 16o and 35o.

In the early days, the people stored their corn in places that were good to give away afterwards like underground or wrapped in a piece of cloth. According to historical accounts, Maori ate their corn raw. In time, they used European cooking procedures such as boiling, roasting and popping and scraping off the soft kernels and preparing various dishes.

In New Zealand, there are two different types of uses of corn. Food stuffs and field corn. Foodstuffs is the type of corn that the people nowadays eat like corn chips, popcorn and corn starch.  Field corn is considered too hard for people to eat so it is given to pigs, sheeps, goats and cattles.