Dig Deeper: Why were corn and pork the most common foods?

Corn could be planted around tree stumps and rocks in a field and grown in a few months time. It was eaten in stews or ground into meal to be used for making bread. Wheat had to be planted on cultivated fields, which meant the rocks and stumps had to be removed. 

 

Pigs could live on nuts and mast, rooting around trees to get their food. Cows, on the other hand, needed grain and large tracts of land on which to graze.