Corn, the staff of life

Everyone here knows about genetically-modified corn from the United States and they are mad about it. I'll bet not one person in 10 in the U.S. can tell you about GMO corn, but here the barista in the coffeehouse talked to me about it for 10 minutes.

Corn is so important here. Most people seem to have tortillas as their staple cereal, and that means corn, not flour, tortillas. A zillion other things are made from corn flour, too, and cornstarch, including beverages.

People have been raising and breeding their corn for thousands of years and suddenly it is polluted by genetically-modified pollen and they aren't happy about it because once it is polluted, you can't un-pollute it. Some scientists have changed nature forever.

I finally figured out what the guy on the bike who comes around my neighborhood is saying. "AY-LO-TAYS" is elotes, or corn on the cob. I kept trying to hear it as "Paletas" or ice cream bars, but I somehow knew that wasn't it.

He has a bike with a platform built on the front of it. He has a little firebox and a pot of boiling water, and he makes corn on the cob right there on the spot. It is usually topped with mayonnaise, cheese and chile powder, sometimes a little lime juice too. I have not been brave enough to try it yet. That mayo sure as heck isn't under any kind of refrigeration...

So far the Pepto-Bismol is holding. It makes me a little queasy just to take it, but I haven't been sick.