“...that corn is what LIVESTOCK ate.”
I had a Dutch housekeper at one time who said the same thing. I couldn’t convince her that cattle corn was vastly different from sweet corn. My Swedish mother and German in-laws looked down on spaghetti and wouldn’t touch it. They considered it plebeian.
Up until the 19th century, tomatoes (imported originally from the new world) were considered cattle food in much of Europe, except among the Southern Italians, who were considered inferior by the northern Italians. That is why you will never see any dishes prepared from tomatoes in northern Italian cuisine.