Blue corn (also known as Hopi maize, Yoeme Blue, Tarahumara Maiz Azul, and Rio Grande Blue) is several closely related varieties of flint corn grown in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, the Southwestern United States, and the

Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

. It is one of the main types of corn used for the traditional Southern and Central Mexican food known as

tlacoyo A tlacoyo is an oval-shaped Mexican dish of pre-Hispanic origin made of masa. Tlacoyos are thicker than fresh corn tortillas and are stuffed with cheese, fava beans, cooked ground beans, chicharron, and other ingredients before being fried o ...

. It was originally developed by the Hopi, the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, and several Southeastern Tribes, including the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

. It remains an essential part of Hopi dishes like piki bread. Blue corn meal is a

corn meal Cornmeal is a meal (coarse flour) or a cell membrane ground from dried corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', ...

that is ground from whole blue corn and has a sweet flavor. It is also a staple of

New Mexican cuisine New Mexican cuisine is the cuisine of the Southwestern US state of New Mexico. The region is primarily known for its fusion of Pueblo Native American cuisine with Hispano Spanish and Mexican cuisine originating in Nuevo México. This cuisi ...

used commonly to make

tortilla A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of M ...

Varieties

Five Hopi blue corn cultivars identified in the 1950s showed significant differences for several traits, such as plant height, kernel weight, width of kernel, and thickness of kernel. The different varieties have a color range from nearly black to blue-grey, with names derived from the "standard" blue ("sakwaqa'o"), hard blue ("huruskwapu"), and grey-blue ("maasiqa'o"). The traditional Hopi blue corn varieties are extremely drought-tolerant, deep-rooted, and somewhat short plants, seldom exceeding 4 to 5 feet in height. The Rio Grande pueblo blue corn varieties are taller, reaching 5–7 feet, higher yielding, and not as drought-tolerant as the Hopi varieties. Both varieties of blue corn prefer deep, sandy soils. Other native varieties of blue corn include Yoeme Blue, a small kernel, short (3 to 4 feet), bushy, and very heat-tolerant low desert blue corn variety cultivated on the Salt River Pima Reservation in Arizona, and the Tarahumara northern Mexican variety Tarahumara Maiz Azul, cultivated in the high deserts bordering the Sierra Madre in Northern Mexico. Tarahumara Maiz Azul is widely used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexico, as well as

tesgüino Tesgüino is an artisanal corn beer produced by several Yuto-Aztec people.El T ...

, a Tarahumaran corn beer. A

heirloom variety of blue corn which originated from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is called Cherokee White Eagle Corn and is distributed to Cherokee tribal members from the Cherokee Nation Seed Bank. It is a tall variety, reaching 5 to 7 feet, and is high yielding.

Tortilla protein content

In 100 grams of blue corn tortilla (Sakwavikaviki), the

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

content is 7.8%, compared to 5.7% in yellow corn tortillas.

Anthocyanins

Varieties of blue corn cultivated in the Southwestern United States vary in their respective contents of anthocyanins, the

polyphenol Polyphenols () are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some o ...

pigment giving the corn its unique color. Anthocyanins having the highest contents are

cyanidin 3-glucoside Chrysanthemin is an anthocyanin. It is the 3- glucoside of cyanidin. Natural occurrences Chrysanthemin can be found in the roselle plant (''Hibiscus sabdariffa'', Malvaceae), different Japanese angiosperms, '' Rhaponticum'' (Asteraceae), The ...

(most abundant), pelargonidin and peonidin 3-glucoside.

Food uses

Aside from its use in traditional Southwestern dishes of tortillas and cereal, blue corn is used commercially in products such as blue corn chips and blue corn pancake mix.

Symbolic uses

The Hopi used corn in religious rituals, placing blue corn in a framework of directional associations in which yellow corn was associated with the Northwest; blue corn with the Southwest; red corn with the Southeast; white corn with the Northeast; black corn with the Above, and all-colored corn with the Below.

References