THE STORY OF CORN

Fussell (Food in Good Season, 1988, etc.) has steeped herself in corn lore and emerged with this encyclopedic entry on that sustaining American grain in myth, ritual, history, science and technology, breeding and cultivation, industry, processing, and cookery (not recipes, just a survey)—with a chapter on corn whiskey thrown in and an interweaving of personal root-claiming by way of a Nebraska grandfather. Fussell has clearly done a good deal of research and a lot of traveling—peering over a precipice at Machu Picchu, descending into a restored ceremonial kiva of the Anasazi people in New Mexico, visiting the sole surviving corn palace from the Midwest boosters' glory days of a century ago—but her prose fails to vivify the scenes she's visited, and, without any argument or added insights, her research reports have a secondhand, summarizing quality. Still, the labor and immersion are evident, and libraries should find uses for Fussell's odd compilation. (Photographs- -150—and line drawings—100—not seen.)