Magic Manna Parching Corn

Parching corn is somewhere between corn nuts and popcorn.  Native american used it for travel food since it had a good storage life and was nutritious.  To parch it, you heat up a small amount of corn in the microwave or on a stove top until it pops.  When it pops it doesn't expand as much as popcorn but does puff up a little bit.  Since this is a flour type corn the kernels are very soft even if not popped.

We grew Magic Manna Parching Corn.  This variety was developed by Carol Deppe (and we got the seed directly from her).  We interplanted Magic Manna Parching and Magic Manna Starburst Corn.  The yield was good and we did not grow any other corn, the planting was isolated from other corn by miles, and none of the commercial corn was tasseling at the same time so we have good uncontaminated seed to offer (after independent lab germination testing).  Carol Deppe maintains quite a bit of genetic diversity in her breeding and we have removed about half of the all white corn from the seed but have kept some white corn in the seeds (as she recommends).  This was grown south central Texas and did pretty well.  The plants topped out at about 3.5 ft tall which makes it seem short compared to other corn that is growing in the area.

Most importantly, the corn is very pretty!