Corn originated in the Americas and spread to Europe with the discovery of the New World at the end of the fifteenth century and to China in the sixteenth century during the Ming Dynasty in China. In recent years, there is also a theory that corn may have been introduced to China before Columbus discovered America. In China, it was first called "Yu Shu", which means sorghum, so it is also known as Yu Sorghum. Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty, "Compendium of Materia Medica" recorded the cultivation of corn in China at that time, pointed out that "corn, seeded out of the western soil, the seeds are also rare, and its seedlings and leaves are like millet and fat and short, but also like Job's tears. The seedling is three or four feet high. It blooms in June and July, and becomes a spike like blighted wheat, with a bract in the center of the seedling like a fish, and a white bract on the bract. A white beard hangs from the bract, and when it hangs for a long time, the bract breaks down and the seeds come out in clusters, and the seeds are as big as a fish, yellowish-white, and can be scalded and eaten. The son, yellow-white, can be fried in fat and fried food, fried to remove the white flowers, such as fried to remove the shape of glutinous grain." Only in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" is not corn (corn) called corn. On the contrary, the "Materia Medica Compendium" has another record of corn, and pointed out that: "corn is millet.

Corn is most familiar to people in northern China, it is a grain crop native to China, archaeological data show that 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, the Chinese people have begun to plant and eat corn, until the Tang Dynasty, corn has been the Chinese people, especially in northern China's most important food. Although, after the Tang Dynasty, the position of corn in the food supply has been challenged by wheat and so on, it still hasn't left the Chinese table until today, only people are more accustomed to call it "millet" only. In daily life, people are very easy to distinguish between millet and corn, and corn is millet rather than corn.