Actually, as I understand it, it took a few years for the New Englanders to figure out how to live in the new land. They had trouble making the adjustment in food and climate at first: the average climate was several degrees colder than what they were used to, and this threw a lot of their plans out of whack. They also planted much later than they should have, so had a poor wheat crop. They were quite suspicious of maize, but there wasn't a lot left to eat at that point. Maize traditionally became a "lower class" food among the European groups living in North America, with the more delicate wheat reserved for their social superiors. This didn't stop people with proper taste buds from loving their corn on the cob, and it's now traditional to serve baskets of the stuff on the appropriate national holidays.