doug — off the record

… corn on the cob holders?

Most Saturday afternoons, you’ll find me in a Zoom call with a gentleman that I’ve know for years. We’re both Computer Science educators and that’s what brought us together. And, years ago, our conversations would be about computers, programming languages, teaching pedagogy, and just about any nerdy thing that you could think of.

Not so much any more. We still try to get together but we’ll chat about just about anything. This afternoon, we were talking about corn on the cob. How’s that for a topic?

My wife and I saw corn on the cob available for the first time from local farmers last weekend and bought a bunch. It wasn’t the greatest but it was still a nice way to have your vegetables. Today, we stopped at one of our favourite farmer markets and bought some more. This week’s purchase was great!

Corn on the cob was a pretty big deal for me growing up and we continue to make it a big deal around here. I’m not an expert but I do remember three different types of corn we’d have – Golden Bantam, Sweet, and my mom’s favourite Peaches and Cream.

We were chatting about this and my friend favours Sweet corn but he will take a cooked cob and scrap the corn off for eating. We bought our corn sight unseen and it turned out to be Peaches and Cream. We eat our corn by letting it slightly cool, hold each end, and then eat it “typewriter style”.

As I was letting my cob cool, it did bring back a bit of a memory. Years ago, we didn’t hold the bare cob in out hands; we had these fancy holders that looked like little plastic corn cobs with metal prongs that we could stick into each end. You’d hold the holder and so the temperature of the corn could be as hot as possible.

Google Gemini took a shot at drawing them.

We don’t have those holders these days.

Our corn discussion also turned to the actual cooking of the cobs. Back in the day, we had this big metal pot that we’d put on the stove and fill it with water and bring it to a boil. The cobs are dropped in and cooked. The advantage of this was the ability to cook a lot at once.

Out of necessity when camping, we didn’t have that big metal pot or a stove but we could put them on a barbecue grill to get the job done. The advantage here is having the corn take on a bit of a BBQ taste.

These days, we’ve found a faster way – we shuck the cobs and put them in a microwave over for six minutes. The advantage here is how quickly the corn is cooked.

Then, you add some butter and salt and you’re good to go.

My discussion of corn on the cob wasn’t limited to just my friend. My wife and I somehow got onto the topic as we were driving to a baseball tournament. She had read of a new method – don’t shuck the corn and microwave it for two minutes, shuck it, and dig in. We’re both sceptical.

Now, surely with all this, there has to be a way to celebrate corn. Essex County, and Tecumseh in particular, has you covered with the Tecumseh Corn and Music Festival. You haven’t lived until you’ve had your corn dipped into a pot of warm salty butter.

But, back to the original inspiration for this post. Those holders. We don’t have any on hand here and I honestly haven’t seen them on sale around town. A quick search indicates that Walmart has an offering. I wonder if you have to do a special order.

So, for a Sunday, your thoughts about corn.

• do you like corn on the cob?
• do you have a preference for the type of corn?
• butter and salt or nothing? Or maybe something else?
• do you use corn cob holders? Where did you get yours?
• is fresh corn available in your section of the world?
• how do you cook your corn?
• is there a trick to shucking corn and doing a complete job? This, I’d sure like to know

Please take a few moments and share your corn thoughts. I’d love to read them.

This is a now irregular Sunday morning post around here. But, I’ve done a bunch in the past. You can check them out here.