I'm All Ears

When the corn is knee high by the Fourth of July, in mid-August we’re up to our ears in ears. Best Corn! bark fellow vendors in jest at each other as they pile their tables high with the tassel-topped packages of summer sugars signaling the height of the season.

When I was growing up my family only ate corn three ways—corn on the cob, chicken corn soup, and creamed/baked corn made from corn that had been cut off of the cobs and frozen for storage. It was standard fare with the husks completely removed, the ears boiled, vintage Bakelite cob holders in the shape of corn ears plugged into each end and the hot kernels rolled across a stick of butter before dusted with salt and pepper. At local firemen’s fairs the ladies’ auxiliaries dished out gallons of chicken corn soup to the community who came year after year to support their local volunteer fire departments. The taste of summer!

Over the years and miles my repertoire of fresh corn recipes has blossomed. After my first taste of Elote (Mexican street corn) at Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta while in college, the corn-on-the-cob of my childhood was positively bland. The husks had been pulled back and tied into a knotted handle while the bare cobs were grilled until the kernels were a caramelized bronze. That would have been enough for me, but the street vendor then rolled the grilled corn in mayonnaise before dusting with chili powder, cumin, cotija (a salty dry cheese), and fresh cilantro before plunking it into a cardboard boat with a few wedges of fresh lime.

There was corn and black bean salsa with fresh jalapeños, corn and green bean salad with a sweet vinegar marinade, corn chowder, corn fritters, corn cakes, and once, a smoked rye corn custard for dessert at a swank bistro—a recipe I’ve longed to reproduce, but always ended up with what amounted to sweet and boozy scrambled eggs and corn.

Sweet corn as we know it evolved out of teosinte, a tall grass native to Mexico. 10,000 years ago the ears started with approximately 20 kernels on a short, huskless cob. By the time Columbus was sailing the oceans, corn had been domesticated into a staple food that fed civilizations throughout Mesoamerica for six thousand years and had begun to spread throughout the rest of the world.   

Zea mays, also called maize, is a member of the grass family, Poaceae with approximately 12,000 species. Other edible members of the grass family include rice, wheat, millet, rye, barley, sorghum, oats, bamboo, and sugarcane.

Only ten percent of corn production in the United States, however, is intended for human consumption as a vegetable (although, like tomatoes and such, corn is classified as a fruit). Most corn grown today is harvested for animal feed, ethanol, and ingredients for processed foods such as high fructose corn syrup and corn starch. Increasingly, corn products are being used in green packaging and textiles, too.

There are hundreds of varieties of sweet corn, which is not the same as popcorn, field corn (also called dent corn due to the divot that develops on the top of each kernel as it dries), flint corn which is the multi-colored Indian corn used in fall decorations, and flour corn for making cornmeal. Plant biologists estimate as many as 5,000 different varieties of corn exist today. In truth, sweet corn is a naturally occurring recessive mutation in the genes that control the conversion of sugar to starch.

Sweet corn comes in an assortment of colors-- yellow and white and bi-colored. Unfortunately, those colorful kernels like blue corn and Indian corn are the flint varieties which means the kernels are hard as rocks as cannot be eaten off the cob. They are used for grinding into cornmeal.

We can’t have a conversation about sweet corn without talking about corn-buying etiquette and worms. Over the years at market I’ve heard customers complain about GMO sweet corn, sweet corn that has been sprayed and worms in their corn all in one sentence. Some farmers choose GMO sweet corn because people don’t want their corn sprayed and they don’t want worms in their corn. Some farmers spray their corn because they don’t want to use GMO seeds and their customers don’t want worms. Some farmers don’t use GMO seeds or spray and their corn will always have a worm, especially as the season progresses.

The worms found in corn are the larval form of an adult moth, which lays a single egg in the green silk of a corn stalk. The egg hatches and the worm feeds on the silk of the corn for about two weeks. The larvae are cannibalistic so normally you’ll only find one in the tip of the cob. Just cut it off or pick it out and all will be well.

But somewhere along the line consumers were taught to look for good corn by peeling back the husk to peek inside. This is a no-no, a farmers market faux pas and a sure way to make your veggie farmers grumpy. To test cobs for plump and plentiful kernels, feel through the husks with your fingers. Do not strip back the husk. Feel the tassels on top of the ear. They should be brown and sticky, not black and brittle. Do not strip back the husk. Check out the color and condition of the husk. It should be bright green and damp as well as tightly wrapped against the cob. Keep it that way by not stripping back the husk to peek inside. As soon as a cob’s husk is peeled back, the kernels begin to dry out and lose sweetness. I know it’s tempting to husk your sweet corn at the market leaving all those leaves with the farmer who conveniently puts out a box. To enjoy the best corn possible it should refrigerated if you’re not going to cook it that day. Husks should be removed immediately before cooking. Now you know why those immaculately cleaned and trimmed cobs in a cellophane package at the grocery store have absolutely no flavor.