Choclo! (Peruvian Giant Corn)

[RogueRose]

Way back in the day (1999 or 2000 to be exact) I went to Peru and went to the Amazon and hiked a portion of the Inca trail. To get around the country we took the local train which stopped at every small village. At each stop little women would crowd around the windows holding up these HUGE ears of corn with kernels the size of your large toe. They hawked this corn with cheese (a sort of queso blanco type cheese). At pretty much every stop I would buy an ear of corn and eat it. It was soooo good! I never thought that this corn could be that good with such huge kernels. My great-grandfather is Henry A Wallace so we are VERY serious about corn in our family.

I FINALLY found peruvian giant corn seeds and just put it in the ground yesterday with some melons. I cannot WAIT for this stuff to come up and I really hope that it does and that I'm as successful with this corn as other varieties. This corn is so tasty and so fun. We're getting rain and 70s for the next 3 days so I hope this give them a good start.

These are pics of choclo from the web, sadly I didn't have a digital camera back in the day and I don't have a scanner to scan in the photos I do have.

Corn with cheese:
[img]https://inlinethumb46.webshots.com/50925/2687433480062041520S600x600Q85.jpg[/img]

Yummy steaming corn:
[img]https://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/48378/2011416130062041520S600x600Q85.jpg[/img]

A pic of how big these kernels are:
[img]https://inlinethumb49.webshots.com/51312/2816436580062041520S600x600Q85.jpg[/img]

Anyone on here ever tried these?

[lorax]

Sure, that's Choclo de Mote. I've only ever seen it served on-ear in Peru - here in Ecuador it's dried on the cob, then pulled off, nixtamalized, and exploded with bacon grease. Mmmm, Mote.

Dang it, now I want Mote con Chicharron for lunch!

Edit - you might have a bit of a time growing it in NJ. Most Latin American corn varieties are adapted for even day lengths (ie 12-12 day-night) and longer growing seasons, and won't produce as well in northern latitudes. Best of luck though!

[RogueRose]

Sure, that's Choclo de Mote. I've only ever seen it served on-ear in Peru - here in Ecuador it's dried on the cob, then pulled off, nixtamalized, and exploded with bacon grease. Mmmm, Mote.

Dang it, now I want Mote con Chicharron for lunch!

Edit - you might have a bit of a time growing it in NJ. Most Latin American corn varieties are adapted for even day lengths (ie 12-12 day-night) and longer growing seasons, and won't produce as well in northern latitudes. Best of luck though!

Mmmm that sounds good! I grew up in some areas of Latin America and none of the corn up here tastes as good as some of the corn down there. Well, they don't taste LIKE the corn down there. I always have to GO there for the corn.

I figured it might be difficult to grow up here and so I'm still planting my other varieties. These seeds come from someone in TN that is growing choclo successfully so we'll see!

[TheWaterbug]

Is this the same/similar to what they use to make Corn Nuts?

Can any one recommend a seed vendor? I'd love to try growing some.

[soil]

Sure, that's Choclo de Mote. I've only ever seen it served on-ear in Peru - here in Ecuador it's dried on the cob, then pulled off, nixtamalized, and exploded with bacon grease. Mmmm, Mote.

Dang it, now I want Mote con Chicharron for lunch!

I hate you for being able to do that, if you want something like that here you have to make it yourself. our food sucks.

[lorax]

Rose - awesome, if it was growing in TN, it will have been daylength-adapted. You've got a great shot that way.

Don't get me started on the tasty ways to eat corn, Soil. I ended up with Mote Pillo (dirty mote - coated with little bits of caramelized pork fat) for lunch, since not a single cart had any chicharrones left.

Waterbug - the corn used for corn nuts (at least, here) is called Mote Caraguay; unlike Choclo Mote, it's yellow kernels with red at the base. I can pick up some dried kernels at the market next Monday and send them up, if you'd like. It's a 6-month cycle corn, though, so I'm not sure how well it would do up north; you might have to grow it in pots and bring it inside in the fall.

[RogueRose]

Rose - awesome, if it was growing in TN, it will have been daylength-adapted. You've got a great shot that way.

Don't get me started on the tasty ways to eat corn, Soil. I ended up with Mote Pillo (dirty mote - coated with little bits of caramelized pork fat) for lunch, since not a single cart had any chicharrones left.

Waterbug - the corn used for corn nuts (at least, here) is called Mote Caraguay; unlike Choclo Mote, it's yellow kernels with red at the base. I can pick up some dried kernels at the market next Monday and send them up, if you'd like. It's a 6-month cycle corn, though, so I'm not sure how well it would do up north; you might have to grow it in pots and bring it inside in the fall.

Thanks! I do hope I'll be successful. Altho it's probably not authentic Choclo grown in the mountains of hte Incas if it's adapted to this area, but I hope it comes CLOSE! I miss the taste.

These are the folks I got mine from, if anyone is interested: https://www.robsrareandgiantseeds.com/

And lorax, your lunch sounds delish! I miss good latin cooking. I would love some chicharrones....and tamales! I acutally make a pretty tasty tamale. Hopefully my corn will pull through!

[RogueRose]

Wow! The corn and melons I planted started coming up already. Now I can see them getting bigger by the day - now bring on the fun!

[TheWaterbug]

Waterbug - the corn used for corn nuts (at least, here) is called Mote Caraguay; unlike Choclo Mote, it's yellow kernels with red at the base. I can pick up some dried kernels at the market next Monday and send them up, if you'd like. It's a 6-month cycle corn, though, so I'm not sure how well it would do up north; you might have to grow it in pots and bring it inside in the fall.

That's funny; I've never heard of Los Angeles being described as "up north" before

Thank you for the offer, but I think postage to LA would be expensive. I just ordered some "[url=https://www.amazon.com/16-24-PERUVIAN-GIANT-seeds-1051/dp/B005JPP16E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337797475&sr=8-1]Giant Peruvian Corn Seeds[/url]" from amazon for next year. I'll have to remember to get them in early, but we have a very long growing season here.

I have regular sweet corn that I planted in March, and it's doing very well right now. We don't really see too much reduction in temperature until well into September, so that gives us 6 months. And it never freezes, so as long as the plant doesn't die on its own, it might just slow down a bit.

[bangstrom]

I knew some people Minnesota who planted the sort of South American corn you described. The stalks grew enormously tall and had to be staked but the corn froze long before it was ripe. They figured it was a length of day problem causing the corn to remain juvenile for too long.

[GardenRN]

I watched a youtube video of someone growing it successfully in NY. I'm sure you'll be fine

[RogueRose]

I knew some people Minnesota who planted the sort of South American corn you described. The stalks grew enormously tall and had to be staked but the corn froze long before it was ripe. They figured it was a length of day problem causing the corn to remain juvenile for too long.

Yeah they can grow up to 20-something ft tall. That's kind of nuts! I debated (and still am) growing some corn by my bedroom window as a natural screen.

I will have to see how it goes....this stuff is from TN not directly Peru and from last year's crop. I'm planting some sweet corn as a back up!

[RogueRose]

I watched a youtube video of someone growing it successfully in NY. I'm sure you'll be fine

Oh good to know!

[ChefLexi1993]

Where can I find choclo to grow on my own?? my man is pervian and I'm puerto rican so we got a good mixture of foods cooked in our house haha. just wanna grow my own food.