Word.ws English Dictionary

sour corn

sour corn noun: lactofermented pickled corn, a dish eaten in the Southern United States, especially in Appalachia.

Noun

sour corn (uncountable)

  1. Lactofermented pickled corn, a dish eaten in the Southern United States, especially in Appalachia.
    • "I always thought that sour corn was the European tradition of sour cabbage brought over and applied to local ingredients," explains April. But after talking to a Cherokee folklorist, she came to understand "that sour corn was already a Native American tradition that Europeans raised on sour...2012, Sandor Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation: An In-depth Exploration of Essential Concepts, page 215
    • Appalachian Sour Corn […] Saure Bohnen translates to “sourbeans” and is a traditional German dish. […] [S]ettlers from the Palatinate region who brought the practice to Appalachia were fermenting green beans in large crocks to be consumed through the winter. Think sauerkraut, only with green beans....2016, Ronni Lundy, Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes, Clarkson Potter, →ISBN, page 118
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sour, corn.
    • “Sour corn” is a term often misused, but its real meaning is that the corn within a can, which has all the appearance of being good on the outside, is found on opening to be sour and nauseating to the taste. Cans of sour corn will never under any circumstances swell, otherwise they would come under...1899, Edward Wiley Duckwall, Bacteriology: Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products, page 78

Examples of sour corn in a sentence

  • "I always thought that sour corn was the European tradition of sour cabbage brought over and applied to local ingredients," explains April.2012, Sandor Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation: An In-depth Exploration of Essential Concepts, page 215:
  • And since that method is so adaptable, they quickly adapted it to fresh corn. […] The sugar and starch give sour corn a rounder, fuller presence in the mouth, […]2016, Ronni Lundy, Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes, Clarkson Potter, →ISBN, page 118:
  • Sour corn could always be found in one of those mysterious crocks that sat in the dark and musky basement at my grandma's house.2019, Sean Brock, South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations, page 272:
  • Cans of sour corn will never under any circumstances swell, otherwise they would come under the heading of swells.1899, Edward Wiley Duckwall, Bacteriology: Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products, page 78:

Origin of sour corn

sour (“tart”) + corn, possibly influenced by the first element of German saure Bohnen (literally “sour beans”) and Sauerkraut (“sauerkraut”).

Questions about sour corn

What does sour corn mean?
Sour corn means lactofermented pickled corn, a dish eaten in the Southern United States, especially in Appalachia.
How do you use sour corn in a sentence?
"I always thought that sour corn was the European tradition of sour cabbage brought over and applied to local ingredients," explains April.
What part of speech is sour corn?
Sour corn is a noun.

Words near sour corn in the dictionary

  1. sour beers
  2. sour bread
  3. sour breads
  4. sour cherries
  5. sour cherry
  6. sour corn
  7. sour cream
  8. sour creams
  9. sour crude
  10. sour diesel
  11. sour dough

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sour corn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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