Corn is King! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Teosinte

The cereal grain today known as "maize", or, more commonly, "corn", has its origins in the teosinte plant first domesticated in southern Mexico some 9,000 years ago. The modern corn plant has been altered by humans to the point where it cannot reproduce without human intervention.

Answer: Animal feed

While corn has myriad uses in the modern world, the largest part of the annual harvest is used for animal feed. A smaller amount is used for human consumption, and corn is also used in the production of biofuel and in the chemical industry.

Answer: United States

In 2025, the United States grew some 30% of the world's corn, followed by China at 22%, Brazil at 9%, and Argentina at 5%.

Answer: Beans and squash

The Native American nations of North America began growing the three staple food crops of corn, beans, and squash together in the same mounds over 1000 years ago. Planting the crops together made them mutually supportive of each other, leading to better yields and less intensive maintenance. Modern Native American farmers still use this method in North America.

Answer: A hard shelled variant of corn

Popcorn is a variety of corn that has a hard outer shell and a quantity of moisture inside. When heated, usually in cooking oil, the shell "pops" open into a crispy puff. Evidence of people eating popcorn as long ago as 2500 BCE has been found in Peru. The Native Americans introduced popcorn to the European settlers in the 17th century, and the snack food became popular all over the world by the mid 20th century.

Answer: Grits and cornbread

Since corn was easier and less expensive to produce than wheat, many Southern American dishes rely heavily on corn. Two of the most common Southern staples are grits, which are dried ground corn boiled in water or milk and seasoned, and cornbread, which is usually made from cornmeal and water and fried in a skillet.

There are many variations of both dishes depending on region and local tastes.

Answer: Sweet corn on the cob

Sweet corn on the cob is favorite summer dish in the American Midwest and coastal New England. Either yellow or white corn, or a recently developed bi-color variant, can be boiled or grilled in the husk and eaten while still on the cob, usually seasoned with salt and butter.

Answer: Bourbon whiskey

In the colonial period in the United States, the lack of roads meant that transportation of farm products was an arduous process. Most farmers that grew corn as their main crop found it much easier (and more profitable) to distill their harvest into Bourbon whiskey, which was much easier to store and transport to market.

The reason that corn based whiskey is called Bourbon Whiskey is unclear, though it is named after the former royal family of France.

Answer: Sugar

First developed and marketed by the Clinton Corn Processing Company in the US state of Iowa in 1964, High Fructose Corn Syrup, or HFCS, was a way to use a by-product of corn processing as a cheaper sweetener than cane sugar. Since widespread use of the product began in the early 1970s, HFCS has become the main sweetener in many products, especially soft drinks.

Answer: Five

Of the tens of thousands of different varieties of corn that exist, five strains make up the bulk of the crop grown each year in the United States. These are field corn, which makes up about 90% of the US crop and is primarily used for animal feed; sweet corn, used primarily for human consumption; popcorn, which makes the tasty treat most consumed in movie theaters; flour corn, which has a softer interior that makes it ideal for making flour, and Flint or Indian corn, which has a hard outer shell and comes in many different colors and is mostly used for decoration.