No, it’s not made out of real babies.

So there I was, sitting at a Mongolian grill, eating my baby corn cooked before my eyes in my own selection of vegetables and oils, when it occurred to me for about the thousandth time that I don’t know what baby corn really is. Is it corn that just hasn’t grown up? (And if that’s the case, why? Is it a Peter Pan syndrome on the part of the corn, or maybe some kind of cruel corn-puberty-prevention ritual?) Or is it some kind of vegetable not even remotely related to corn that just happens to look like corn, and hence was named in its honor? Or is it a weird variety of corn that naturally grows up to look like a Munchkinland version of a summertime BBQ favorite?

Perhaps you have pondered the same weighty question — I wouldn’t be surprised. Well, today is the day we wonder no more!

Turns out, baby corn actually is baby corn. Immature corn. Plucked from the vines while still young and crunchy, before the cobs get too hard to eat. Not a masquerading tuber. Not a genetic mutation. Just plain old baby corn.

Educate yourself in a small way: Baby Corn a la Wikipedia

Or Educate yourself in a slightly bigger way: More than you probably want or need to know about baby corn, unless you plan to become a baby corn farmer, which you can apparently learn at such backwater universities as WSU

DIY Blogging: Insert some witty Children of the Corn reference here.