Just to answer CaoimhínSF, the maize he saw growing in the fields in France was 'hard' maize used to feed poultry. We do have another kind of maize - often out of a tin, but also as a complete corncob - which in English is known as sweet corn or here as maïs doux. Certain American restaurants in Paris have managed to get local farmers to produce sweet corn especially for them. I remember a farmer's wife in the Dordogne (SW France) telling me that French children from cities such as Paris who came to stay with her, tried to eat the 'hard' corncobs that were in the séchoirs (a kind of long drying cage made of a wooden framework and chicken wire, placed along the side of the field or near the farmyard). At first, she couldn't understand what they were doing but they quickly realised that it wasn't eatable.

Very interesting. I should mention that my studying in France was in 1969 and 1970, so it was a very long time ago. The maize situation in France may be very different now. When I lived in Germany a decade later, they had corn on the cob, but it was not very common and definitely considered an American dish.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.