# Survival > Foraging & Wild Edibles >  Field corn and soy beans

## Wildthang

I was out walking around my place last night, and with all of the fruit trees, and my garden, there is a lot of edibles available on my place. Then I thought, I have field corn and soy beans growing on all borders of my property, so that could be a food source as well. 
My question is, what is the best way to utilize field corn and soy beans. During the growing season I could literally harvest and store more food than I could ever eat during the winter months, but have never tried to process or prepare field corn or soy beans.
I know when I was a kid, a buddy of mine and I got lost for a couple of days, and we ate a lot of raw field corn that we came by. I made us Poo like wild geese but other than that, it never made us sick, so I know it can be eaten.

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## hunter63

I often wondered about that my self....I have a lots of corn....beans died this year, but are grown from time to time.....Good point.

Recipes would be good.

Have tried roasted field corn, and is tough and and taste "mealy".
Have 'parched corn" and ate it dry, as well as made a porridge from it...and yeah eatable but not real tasty.

As far as it going right thru you, I'm thinking the straight raw corn over loads your system and can't process it too well?
I'm also thinking that grinding into meal would be of more benefit as far a digesting goes.

There maybe traditional recipes involving a "corn broiler".....Just got one., and kinda researching early ways of preparing corn.
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Haven't tried soy beans too much yet, but are kinda nasty raw....have had them pan roasted, like parched corn....and are OK.

Interesting topic.......Thanks

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## Cast-Iron

The field corn they grew around here (years ago before GMO's) was actually quiet good to eat any number of ways.  However, you had only a day or two to harvest it when it was ready because it would become tough and mealy if you didn't harvest it in time.  That may have been a characteristic of that specific variety, but I haven't a clue what the specific variety was.  I am certain it didn't come from the labs at Monsanto!  My advice is just to keep tabs on the crop and be prepared to act quickly when the flavor peaks.

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## edr730

Ask your neighbors where the neighborhood farmer's co op is and see what they have and buy what you want. If they don't have it, ask where to get it. You could start with buying wheat and a grinder. You'll do too much damage to those beans trying to harvest them when they are ready. We were taught not to damage a man's crops. But, you can put a cup of dry soybeans in a quart jar and fill the rest of the jar with water to an inch from the top and process it at 15 lbs for 90 mins. I've ate many like this but don't anymore. I know that they are all GMO crops in the field now. But, you should read about GMO's too and make your decision about those as well. Like cast iron says, people used to eat the corn, but I haven't heard about it in many years.

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## Wildthang

Well I figure that if I'm ever really hungry runnin short on food, what little I will take will never be missed, plus the farmers are good freinds of mine and have always told me that if I want any of the corn after it dries in the fields, to just help myself. I get some every year for bird food.
So what does GMO have to do with the edibility of corn and soy beans? Will it make you sick or what?

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## 2dumb2kwit

Here's some corny info. He does explain the different kinds of corn, in here.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWzu5lYSVGU

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK57hpWddZQ

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## kyratshooter

Yes folks, corn is food!  You can grind it into meal between two stones and make bread from it.  

And if you have wheat growing nearby that is food too.  It grinds up and forms a substance called "flour".

You can do the same thing with soybeans.

And those cows and other four legged animals you see roaming around, they are food too!  If properly processed they make an item we call "meat".

The entire operation is a system we refer too as "agriculture".  

Some folks have been engaging in this process for +- 10,000 years.  I am surprised you have not already noticed that it was going on.

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## hunter63

Wow, Walmart has been around That long.....LOL.....
Everbody knows that if you buy "meat" at the store no cute little animals are harmed.
Bread comes from factories.......Sheesh.

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## Wildthang

> Yes folks, corn is food!  You can grind it into meal between two stones and make bread from it.  
> 
> And if you have wheat growing nearby that is food too.  It grinds up and forms a substance called "flour".
> 
> You can do the same thing with soybeans.
> 
> And those cows and other four legged animals you see roaming around, they are food too!  If properly processed they make an item we call "meat".
> 
> The entire operation is a system we refer too as "agriculture".  
> ...


Well OK smartazz, then tell us how to process the raw fresh out of the field corn so it is fit to eat. And I am not talking about sweet corn either!

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## LowKey

you don't process raw FRESH field corn. You let it dry, hopefully on the stalks in the field. Once dry, you shuck it, you shell it then you grind it. It really helps to have a corn sheller to remove the kernels from the cobs but you can do it by hand or with a hand held sheller.

When you need it you grind the corn into meal. If you grind too much, it will spoil, as unlike store-bought, it still has the germ in it and will go rancid. Same goes for wheat.

Also be careful of the moisture levels in your dried corn. I had to look up the name of the fungus but aflatoxins can inhabit stored corn if the moisture level is too high during storage.

Soybeans, you can dry em then roast them but other uses I don't know. You only get two beans per shell so they're rather tedious. If you are planting this stuff as fodder or coverage crop, you can also get canadian field peas. They dry real nice and make great pea soup. Though sometimes I have to harvest the vines and hang under cover to dry to keep them from rotting on the ground. Cut them to leave the roots behind though for the nitrogen.

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## intothenew

Here is some bed time reading for you.

Cornmeal and Grits

Edamame


And don't show up at a corn fight with only a knife.

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It hurts, just thinking about it.

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## LowKey

Do those salt boiled soybeans taste anything like boiled peanuts? If so, might have to change my cover crop back.
I used to love visiting gramps in Florida when it was boiled peanut season. 
Seemed you couldn't go anywhere without stopping for some along the way. 
The canned ones are passable but nothing like the real thang.

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## hunter63

I'm thinking that recipes and processing methods, would probaly fit in this thread better than a history of Agrculture.

Lots of thes skills have been lost because of the ease of purchasing these grain already processed and ready made products. 

So here's a parched corn, (easy to do) method.
http://www.utahpreppers.com/2009/10/...-parched-corn/

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## wtrfwlr

IntoTheNew, what in the world is that thing?

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## shiftyer1

My dad grew up eating field corn just like sweetcorn,  they'd pick it while it was young and more tender and boil it on the cob.  I believe he added a little sugar also.

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## intothenew

> Do those salt boiled soybeans taste anything like boiled peanuts?


No, absolutely not. There is none of the earthen, oily taste of a nut. They are green, and taste green.




> IntoTheNew, what in the world is that thing?


My paternal Grandfather's hand shuck.

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## BornthatWay

When I was a kid we would pull the field corn before it dried out and boil it on the cob just like roast n eaes.  The secret was to have a really big pot of boiling water wiyh saly anYou cd sugar in it.  Ypu would need to cook the ears a few minutes longer but they were just as good as sweet corn any day.  This way we had roasting ears alot longer.  If you cooked too many ears then just cut them off to make corn puddim.

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## wtrfwlr

> boil it on the cob just like roast n eaes.  The secret was to have a really big pot of boiling water wiyh saly anYou cd sugar in it.


I'm not a spell checker or anything, but I can't understand this part?

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## Sparky93

My Grandma makes some awesome fried field corn, I don't know her recipe but I do know she adds *A LOT* of sugar! lol

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## kyratshooter

> Well OK smartazz, then tell us how to process the raw fresh out of the field corn so it is fit to eat. And I am not talking about sweet corn either!


Yea, what all those guys said before I could answer!

Every world culture is based on a surplus production of a single seed grain. Corn, wheat, barley, millit, oats, rice....

In almost all cases if the seed is dried it will store indefinately by only keeping it dry and the surplus seed not used for food will germinate as a crop.  Unless you are using a hybred.

Corn is one of the world's exceptions since it can be eaten at several stages in the growing process.  As stated, fresh corn can be eaten boiled, roasted or fried.  After it is dried it can be parched, ground into flour or lye used to disolve the outter shell and the seed turned into hominy and the hominy crushed into grits.

All the forms of corn we use today is derived from "popcorn", which was engineered into "Indian corn" (the multicolored type) which has been further modified into what we have today.  Our modern corn is engineered to fit the machines that pick and process it.  Back in the old days the ears had a different number of rows of seed and individual ears the Indians grew  were often 2 feet long.  The pioneers often gew a small cob form that was much smaller than what we have today, often refered too as "nubbin" ears.  It was used as food for both people and livestock and eaten all through its growing cycle, depending on how hungry one was.    

The soybeans are usually dried and grouind into flour.  The flour can be blended into many products that some people claim resemble food.

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## crashdive123

> I'm not a spell checker or anything, but I can't understand this part?


I haven't hand much luck guessing today, but I'm guessing left hand was to the right one key.  I'm thinking it says 


> boil it on the cob just like roasting peas.  The secret was to have a really big pot of boiling water with salt and sugar in it

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## wtrfwlr

You are probably right. I was never good at Jeopardy either!

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## Rick

Edamame is excellent. You can buy it in the store pre-boiled and frozen. You just pop it in the microwave and enjoy. We have it all the time. Just put one end in your mouth, grasp the bean with you teeth and pull. Out pops the bean. You could do the same with field soybeans as long as they are green. Once they are dried you can cook them like you would any other dried bean such as Navy beans.

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## Wildthang

Well I guess I will pick up a hand crank corn mill so if I ever really need to process field corn, I have a mill!

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## LowKey

Just be sure whatever hand mill you buy can handle corn. A lot of the smaller (cheaper) models can't.
You'll want a course burr for cracking and a fine burr for meal. And a couple of spares of each.

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## kyratshooter

> Just be sure whatever hand mill you buy can handle corn. A lot of the smaller (cheaper) models can't.
> You'll want a course burr for cracking and a fine burr for meal. And a couple of spares of each.


You can also crack the corn using a morter and pestle.  A hollow stump and a hardwood log about 4" diameter and 4' long does a good job.  You can then grind the corn using a mano and matate made from sandstone.  That was the way the Indians and pioneers did it for a couple of thousand years and they lived through the experience.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q...e_result_group

The first indications that agriculture is developing in prehistoric cultures anywhere in the world is the presence of these grinding stones in the villiages.  Some were as large as a pickup truck bed and severl people could work at the same time, making the labor a community gossip time.  It might be that "settleing down" took place because those stones were a bit too heavy and too large to fit in a rucksack and tote along the trail while chasing mastodons.   

The first "industry" in any frontier setlement was usually a grist mill.  My fifth removed grandfather was a stone cutter in Adams County, Ohio around 1810-1820 and had a quarry that specialized in making millstones.  He employed every man in the county in his quarry and the local newspaper complained about the lack of agriculture taking place due to this enterprise!  His millstones were shipped by water all over the Ohio Valley frontier.

The miller usually charged 10% as the fee for grinding so "town people" that did not grow corn had access to meal or flour directly from the miller without having to buy grain.

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## Wise Old Owl

Funny how no one mentioned the benefit of fresh corn buttered and sea salt wrapped in foil and tossed on hot coals of a wood fire..... stays hotter and gets sweeter.

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## oldtrap59

We have an older hand powered grain mill here that we use to mill cornmeal. It's big and heavy and does a great job on corn. A couple times over the years we have also bought wheat that we milled. Have no experience milling beans but if they're dry enough I imagine you could do that also.

As far as what type of corn to mill we prefer an old open pollinated varity called yellow dent or another one that we raise which is again op but blue. 

Nothing like fresh milled cornmeal. 

Oldtrap

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## edr730

I've heard my grandmother talk of taking a "turn" of corn to the gristmill. My father sometimes grew what he called King Kane corn which was the big white corn with a certain number of rows. He talked about nubbins. I never saw nubbins till I went to Central America. They called what I think were nubbins "chilote" and the called the big white corn "elote". They also made something like hominy and somehow ground it into a fine masa flour for tortillas or left it a little coarser for tamales or nacatamales. I've made parched corn many times and if you like it tender, it is best with a tender corn like dryed sweet corn. It is better with some oil like popcorn, but put a lid on it if you don't want to get spattered and have some kernals pop out onto the floor.

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## Wildthang

Well I am planting a bunch of sweet corn next year. The guy that plants the field next top me said he would leave me a row right next to my yard that I can plant sweet corn. I have never grownit, but it couldn't be that hard. I guess you have to put nitrogen in the row, and hoe the weeds out of it. I bought a special corn hoe a couple of weeks ago, just for that purpose so the girls can take turns with the corn hoe!

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## volantis

> My question is, what is the best way to utilize field corn and soy beans.


I bought a barrel full of soybeans from our local food coop.  The beans are already dried and ready for storage.  I prepare them in a Japanese recipe called natto.  The food is good added as an ingredient to other dishes and provides a natural source of nattokinase, a necessary enzyme for keeping the arteries clean.  

I tried using dried field corn but wasn't impressed.  Dried field corn is probably better used as a fuel source.  You just burn the dried kernels like firewood.  They actually make corn burner stoves for heating your house with.

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## canid

Corn in a single row? better be ready to hand pollinate. or do you mean a row of his corn field?

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## kyratshooter

One of the bueaties of corn is that you can engage in family agriculture without any modern farm equiment.  The American Indians developed the crop using a "digging stick" as their only farm tool.

Rake up a hill about a foot tall and 3" in diameter, drop in about a dozen corn seed spaced around the hill.  Come back when it sprouts and add a few beans to the hill and a few Squash seeds.  The corn grows, then the beans grow up the cornstalks and the squash gives ground cover to keep the weeds down.  

I put an "Indian garden" of a half dozen of these hills in the back yard and the grandkids went wild over it.  They ignored the mass of vegies growing in the main garden and ran to check on their Indian garden every time they were over.  Of course the fact that i substituted watermellons and pumpkin for the squash promoted that a little.

No plowing needed, no tree cutting, disking or harrowing.   If trees are present you can "girdle" them and eliminate the stealing of sunshine.

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