Friday, August 29, 2008

Mid-Summer Corn



Although in this week’s column I want to return to discuss mid-season sweet corn, I can not help but make mention of an article I saw in the New York Times this past week. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of radiation to sterilize spinach and iceberg lettuce. Previously, the FDA approved the irradiation of beef, poultry, pork, wheat, potatoes and other fruits and vegetables. They have done this in the name of food safety as irradiated food has had any E. coli, salmonella or campylobacter bacteria zapped by their gamma ray machines. This is, in fact, further admission by the FDA that they can not control the food stream in this country and must resort to high tech methods to guarantee sanitary food products for consumers. As the Times article states, Patty Lovera of the consumer group Food & Water Watch, was quoted as saying “This is a total cop-out. They don’t have the resources, the authority or the political will to really protect consumers from unsafe foods.” Many, this writer included, feel that irradiating food results in decrease in nutritional value and taste, and I studiously avoid irradiated food. Note that irradiated food must be labeled as such, so “buyer beware” when shopping at the supermarket. This, of course, is another reason to keep your food dollars circulating locally by buying from area farmers, farm stands and farmers’ markets. No local farmer runs his or her vegetables though an X-ray machine before offering them to the public!

We’ve been enjoying the corn season at our house and Rosemary brings home a few ears regularly from Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford where everything is grown organically. Sure we grill it if I’m cooking outside, we boil it or steam it if I am cooking inside, but this weekend at the Norwich Farmers’ Market, I picked up the first shell beans I’ve seen from Craig Putnam of Echo Hill Farm in Orford. I had just been thinking it was about time to make a New England favorite, succotash, so I was tickled to see those red speckled bean pods at Craig’s booth.

Succotash is one of those recipes that everyone makes differently. While it apparently originated here in New England, its name is derived from the American Narraganset Indian words misickquatash and sukquttahash, there are dozens of “authentic” methods around the country of making succotash. The three basic required ingredients are maize or fresh corn, beans, and some sort of cured pork product like bacon or salt pork. Beyond these basics, almost any other vegetable can be added, like okra in the south, where succotash is more widely eaten. Original recipes call for lima beans, but I’ve always used fresh shell beans, although in Pennsylvania green beans are commonly used. So feel free to substitute what you have on hand when concocting a plate of succotash.

Here’s how I made a skillet full the other night:

Succotash

¼ lb Bacon
1 cup Fresh shell beans
4 each Ears fresh sweet corn
1 pint Yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
4 each Fresh Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 each Sweet onion, diced ¼”
2 each Garlic cloves, minced
1 each Green pepper, cored and diced
1 each Jalapeno pepper, seeds removed and chopped fine
¼ cup Red wine vinegar
½ cup Fresh cream
3 tbl Fresh flat leaf parsley, minced

Cut the bacon into 2” pieces and cook over medium heat in a cast iron skillet until crisp. Remove the bacon to paper towels to drain and discard all but 1 tablespoon or so of the bacon fat. Add the diced onions and cook over medium heat about 5 minutes or more, but don’t allow to brown. Add the green pepper and jalapeno and cook 3 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook one more minute. Add the tomatoes and vinegar and cook about 5 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to break down. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, shell the beans and cook in some boiling water until tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Drain and reserve.

Husk the corn and cut the kernels off the cob. Add to the skillet with the other vegetables and cook about 5 minutes. Add the reserved beans, the bacon, crumbled, and the cream. Simmer a few minutes to combine all the flavors and then sprinkle with the parsley. Serve warm.

Feel free to substitute other vegetables if you like such as diced zucchini or yellow crooked-neck squash, pan patty squash, broccoli flowerets, or green or yellow beans. Try grilling the corn before adding or grill the zucchini or even the green beans for a smoky flavor. Experiment and have fun!

The days are getting a little cooler, particularly in the morning, so its time to think about making soup again. Corn chowder made with fresh corn is a treat you can only enjoy this time of year. Here’s a chowder I made a week ago that combines two summer treats, sweet corn and Maine lobster. Try it for a special occasion or just for fun.

Lobster and Corn Chowder
Serves 8

2 2lb Maine lobsters
1 each Celery stalk, coarsely chopped
1 each Medium carrot, coarsely chopped
2 each Sprigs of fresh, flat-leaf parsley
1 each Bay leaf
5 each Black peppercorns
½ lb Salt pork, diced
3 each Medium yellow onions, peeled and diced
3 each Garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 ½ lb Red Bliss potatoes, cut in ½” cubes
6 each Ears of fresh sweet corn, cut off the cob (c. 4 cups)
3 cups Half-and-half, or light cream
Pinch Cayenne pepper
Freshly ground pepper, white if you have it, otherwise black
2 tbl Fresh, flat-leaf parsley, minced

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salt it generously, and add the lobsters. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the lobsters to a platter and strain the cooking liquid into a large bowl or another pot. You can cool the lobsters under cold water, then remove the meat from the shells, cut it into large pieces (I leave the claws whole), and reserve. Discard any tomalley and coral, or eat it, as I did. Add the shells to the cooking water along with the celery, carrots, parsley sprigs, bay leaf and peppercorns. Simmer the stock for 1 ½ hours and strain it through a fine sieve into another pot. Cook it down until you have about 6 cups of liquid left.

Try out the salt pork in a Dutch oven over medium-low heat until crisp and the fat has rendered out, 15 minutes or so. Remove the salt pork to some paper towels to drain and reserve to garnish the soup later. Add the diced onions to the fat and sauté over low heat until soft, about 10 minutes or so. Add the minced garlic and cook a couple more minutes. Add the potatoes and roll them around in the pork fat to cover. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook the potatoes about 5 minutes then add the corn kernels and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 5 to 10 more minutes. Add the half-and-half, the dash of cayenne, and return to the simmer. Add the lobster meat and simmer, don’t boil, until heated through, 3 or 4 minutes. Correct the seasoning, grind on a bunch of fresh pepper, garnish with the salt pork bits and fresh parsley. Enjoy!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Tomatoes






The tomato season is upon us and a large variety of different fruits are appearing in farmers’ markets and at farm stands. Perhaps you grow some tomatoes at home, as we do, so you can enjoy vine-ripened fruit from now until frost. The little cherry tomatoes were the first to ripen at our house, but now some of the plum tomatoes, like Roma and San Marzano are starting to turn red, and the Brandywines and beefsteaks are taking on some color. We also grow Cherokee Purple, a heirloom variety with a distinctive coloration.

The tomato plant is native to the western hemisphere, probably originating in South America or Mexico. The Spanish discovered the plant in the 16th century and brought it to Europe where it quickly became grown in the Mediterranean areas. Originally thought to be poisonous, it was used as a tabletop decoration, before being adopted for its culinary uses, perhaps as late as the 1700s. Today we hardly think of Italian or Spanish cuisine without the ubiquitous tomato, and its many uses have made it a staple in a large number of households. Thomas Jefferson brought tomato seeds home from Paris and helped to popularize the tomato in America. Today tomato production is dominated by the Chinese, which produces about 25% of global output, although the US is the second largest producer, followed by Turkey.

The tomato plant, solanum lycopersicum, is a perennial plant grown as an annual. It is a member of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and is related to the tobacco plant, the eggplant, chili peppers and the potato. Strictly speaking, the tomato itself is a fruit, being the ovary of the tomato plant complete with seeds. In actuality, the tomato is a berry of the flowering plant, but is it generally known as a vegetable. Most fruits are sweet in taste and used more as a dessert, however the tomato is more acidic and used as part of an entrée or salad. In the science of botany there is no “vegetable” species, as this is purely a culinary term. The tomato is the state vegetable in New Jersey, and I must say that when I shopped at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York, the Jersey tomatoes were unequalled in their variety of shapes, sizes, colors and taste.

Recently tomatoes have been in the news as they were the source of a salmonella outbreak a few months ago, sickening people across the country, including in Vermont and New Hampshire. The hapless Food and Drug Administration was unable to detect the source of this poisoning for many months, and now they think it originated in Mexico with some jalapeno peppers. The point being that the food chain in this country is suspect, with products coming from so many producers worldwide that the government has lost any control it once had, and you should stick to eating locally grown foods not only for their superior flavor, but also for food safety reasons. If you buy a local tomato and get sick, you know where it came from and can return to the source. Buy one in the supermarket and you don’t have a clue as to its origin, and neither does the supermarket manager.

The tomato is rich in vitamin C and the red varieties, particularly in tomato ketchup and tomato paste, include a powerful antioxidant, carotenoid lycopene. It is little known that the leaf of the tomato, long thought to be toxic because it contains a defensive alkaloid, tomatine, can be added to a tomato sauce near the end of cooking to restore its fresh flavors that are lost during the cooking process. The tomatine actually binds with cholesterol in our digestive system, preventing the absorption of the toxic alkaloid and the cholesterol. So this practice of using some tomato leaf to freshen your sauce includes a health benefit as well as being a taste enhancer! Who knew?

Tomatoes purchased in a store are picked green and artificially ripened with ethylene gas, a hydrocarbon gas given off by fruit. Tomatoes ripened this way tend to last longer, but they have inferior flavor, and are starchier and mealier than those ripened on the vine. Vine ripened tomatoes accumulate more sugar, acid and aroma compounds, thus they have more flavor. Most commercial growers are primarily interested in tomatoes that are disease and pest resistant, cracking resistant, fast growing and uniform in size. Taste takes a back seat, and commercial growers prefer hybrid varieties that are produced by genetically modifying the seed or crossing with other varieties to enhance one characteristic, like uniformity of size or pest resistance. Most hybrids will not produce a seed that will duplicate its parent, so the commercial grower is dependent upon the seed producer for each year’s crop. Recently there has been a resurgence of the heirloom or heritage tomato amongst home and organic gardeners due to their better flavor and more interesting shapes and colors, albeit at the risk of less disease or pest resistance.

Tomatoes should not be refrigerated! As soon as a tomato is chilled to 55 degrees or below they suffer damage to their membranes that dissipate their flavor, result in a blotchy, unappetizing appearance, and damage to their texture. Bringing them back to room temperature will not reverse this process, so please store them outside your refrigerator. If you’ve picked them slightly under ripe, store them in a paper bag as they ripen best in the dark. If the tomato is fully ripe, you can refrigerate it, but you won’t be doing it or its future eaters any favors.

Fresh local heirloom tomatoes are plentiful now. While we are fortunate to have access to Longwind Farm in East Thetford, where fresh organic tomatoes are produced about 10 months of the year, we eat primarily canned tomatoes during the non-summer months. I like the San Marzano canned tomatoes for tomato sauce, but also find Hunt’s Whole tomatoes an acceptable alternative. I strictly avoid all crushed canned tomatoes, finding them overly acidic, and only buy whole canned tomatoes. I like to crush them up myself after they’ve cooked for a while, and I usually use my potato masher, rather than my food mill, as we like our sauce a little chunky, whether for pasta, in an eggplant parmesan or in soup or stew. A pot roast or winter beef stew always get a can of whole tomatoes at my house, and, of course, anything cooked with tomatoes improves with an overnight aging in the refrigerator.

Today I’m making a large pot of fresh tomato sauce from a boxful of organic seconds Rosemary brought home from Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. There are probably a half a dozen types of tomatoes including a black-purple heirloom type, some plum tomatoes and some beefsteaks. I’ll sauté some local onions and garlic from our garden before adding shredded carrots grown at Your Farm in Fairlee (for their natural sweetness). Before I dump in the tomatoes, which I have peeled and seeded, I’ll add some fresh thyme, and then cook these tomatoes down to a thick sauce for tonight’s supper. Just before serving, I’ll add some fresh basil leaves.

I also bought some little plum tomatoes from Craig Putnam of Echo Hill Farm in Orford, and I’m drying them in a low (200 degrees) oven on sheet pans until fully desiccated. These tomatoes I’ve sliced lengthwise and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and a little sugar. I’ve sprinkled them with fresh thyme and arranged them cut side up on parchment paper. It will take 6 to 8 hours to fully dry them out. You could use a dehydrator, but I prefer my oven. I’ll store these oven-dried tomatoes in a jar with olive oil and garlic slices and a few basil leaves for use later on.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Whole Hog BBQ & Music Festival

Today I am authoring my weekly column from the grounds of The Whole Hog BBQ and Music Festival in North Haverhill, NH. I am part of the Smoking Barrels crew, headed by Jeremy Cramer of Fairlee. The barbecue contest consists of three events; spareribs, shoulder and whole hog. The Whole Hog BBQ and Music Festival is in its 6th year, having originated on the Memorial Field in Bradford before moving to the North Haverhill Fairgrounds last year. There are nine teams competing in this Memphis BBQ Network (MBN) sanctioned event. The array of cookers and barbecue contraptions, from the Big Green Egg cookers to home made smokers is impressive. No two teams have similar equipment, and, Lord knows, they all have different recipes and barbecue techniques. Some teams start their pigs and shoulders while the sun is still up on Saturday evening, while others don’t put their meats on the grill until after the sun sets and the Big Dipper comes out. The variety of heat sources is also all over the lot; some teams are using homemade charcoal, some Kingsford briquettes, or others commercial charcoal. Some cookers have rotisseries, while most cook directly on a steel grate over charcoal or on a rack elevated above the grate. All the cookers have covers so the meat cooks in a closed atmosphere with some smoke exhaustion.

Barbecue is a distinctly American invention, although cooking over an open fire or with smoke has been occurring for eons, worldwide. Not to be confused with “grilling,” where the meat or vegetables to be cooked are placed on a grate over red hot coals, and are cooked by radiant heat, similar to what happens when you use your oven’s broiler, barbecue is a slow, indirect heat method of cooking, developed primarily in the American south. The barbecue cookers have drafts and vents that permit the cook to control the temperature in the covered cooker, and the ideal for a pig roast is 200 to 250 degrees. This produces a long, slow cooking in a smoke filled atmosphere, producing a falling apart meat with a decidedly smoky flavor. Many contestants rub or marinate or inject their meat with a flavoring treatment designed to complement and season the flesh. Brown sugar, vinegars, salt and a wide variety of herbs and spices are often used. Everybody has their own favorite formula, and while general descriptions abound (if you choose to believe them), few actual details are enunciated. Barbecue folks are a genial lot, given to an evening of companionship and story telling. But even late at night, after swapping tales and quaffing some suds, rub particulars remain untold.

At The Whole Hog, the head judge inspects the meat to be cooked on-site to be sure that no marinades or rubs have been applied in advance. Some cooks mop their meat, primarily spareribs, with a sauce toward the end of the cooking period to give it added flavor. Others just dry rub their ribs and serve them plain when they are done. “Wet or dry?” is a server’s question to patrons at barbecue joints all over the south. I saw both methods here.

I found it interesting that during the judging, the judges were instructed to use only their hands to handle and eat the meat. While we provided silverware for the judges’ use, most adhered to the MBN standard and picked up the meat, pulled it apart to see if it was tender, smelled it closely, looked it over carefully and then ate it. If a sauce was provided, most ate the meat unadorned before trying it with the sauce. One of the visuals of properly barbecued meat is the smoke ring that results from the long smoky cooking. This smoke ring is a light pink coloring just below the surface of the meat that results from smoke and water in the meat interacting during the lengthy cooking process. Another is the looseness of the bone, and the judge wants to see the bone removed to be sure that the meat is thoroughly cooked. The bone should be white or near white.

The contestants start gathering on Saturday morning, bringing in their equipment, supplies, coolers, tables and chairs. Most have a camper trailer, which includes a bathroom and sink, although each contestant is supplied with running water and access to an electrical outlet. Mark Fifield of Bare Bones actually brought a small three bay sink for his team, but then he’s highly experienced in pig roasting and has accumulated a large variety of equipment over the years. As soon as the head judge inspects each contestant’s meats, we are all off and running, mixing rubs and marinades, if not already prepared in advance, and getting our meats injected or seasoned in preparation for the actual cooking. The on-site judging schedule dictates each teams timing as to when their meats will be placed on their cooker as ribs are due at 9:30 on Sunday morning, shoulders at 10:30 and whole hog at 11:30. Most teams man their cookers throughout the night as cooking temperatures are closely monitored to assure even, slow cooking. The meats must be thoroughly cooked, but not to the point of being mushy. Tender, falling off the bone meat is the ideal for southern barbecue, and it is often called “pulled pork” to connote the fact that no utensils are needed, its that tender. It shreds under your touch.

Once the meat schedule is worked out and the cooks know when to get each piece on, its time to decorate your area for the judges. In our case we have a tropical scene while the No Swiners, a family team from Thetford and Corinth, has a farm theme complete with hay bales, sponge painted kitchenware on a wrought iron stand and baby pig figurines scattered amongst the many ribbons they have won at The Whole Hog festival over the years.

In the morning, all the contestants are busy with their final preparations and hoping that their meats will be cooked just right, in time for the judging. Judging consists of two events, the blind box and on-site judging. In the blind box, each team is supplied with a covered container with a number and name of the product (ribs, shoulder or whole hog). The team selects portions of their barbecue for inclusion in the blind box and it is delivered at a preset time to the blind box judges. Shortly thereafter the first on-site judge arrives at your cooking area. By this time, we are all adorned with our Smoking Barrel shirts and aprons, looking spiffy, if not a little tired from the lack of sleep. The area had been raked and all extraneous equipment, trash and the like cleared away. The judge is invited in and shown the meat on the cooker. We introduce the team and discuss where the meat came from, what type of fuel we used and how the meat was cooked. A portion is placed on a clean plate and served to the judge at a table where we have arranged a place setting with silverware and a glass of water. While the judge inspects and tastes the meat, we point out the characteristic smoke ring, the ease of removing the bone, and other salient points about our barbecue. The judge stays 10 to 12 minutes before thanking us and moving out of our area to complete their notes and scoring. Meanwhile, we fill out our scoring of the judge on a preprinted form. Then a second on-site judge arrives and we repeat the process. In all, each product has three on-site visits from a different judge. Meanwhile, the blind boxes were judged by 4 different individuals outside our view.

After the initial round of judging, three finalists are selected for the final judging. This process takes an additional couple of hours to complete, and by this time the crowd, which started to arrive around noon and has been entertained by some great blues bands, is restive and eager for the “people’s choice” time to arrive. During this period, which commences at 3:45 pm, people go to each booth and receive samples of the meats cooked. After sampling a variety of contestants’ offerings, they vote their choice for the best barbecue.

I won’t give the final results, which are published elsewhere in this newspaper, except to say that the big winner, both Grand Champion and Peoples’ Choice, was Bare Bones, and they will now compete next spring in Memphis for the MBN national championship. Good luck to Bare Bones, and we know you will represent us well.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Blueberries




The blueberry season is in full swing, and with all the rain we’ve had recently it has made for a bumper crop. The blueberries are fat, tart and sweet in their indigo skins, and the plants are loaded with berries. So if you haven’t already picked some up at your farmers’ market, look to “pick your own” opportunities at area vegetable farms. It doesn’t take long to fill a pail or two, and, of course, quite a few end up going right down the old gullet.

I don’t know how well known is the fact that blueberries are actually not just good to eat, but they are genuinely good for you. They are known as one of the “super-fruits,” filled with antioxidants, rich in nutrients, and having cancer fighting properties. Scientists have determined that blueberry consumption can have beneficial effects on cholesterol levels, cognitive decline as occurs in Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension and heart disease. So they should be eaten not just for their taste, but also for their health benefits.

Native to North America, blueberries are a member of the genus Vaccinum, Sect. Cyancoccus. They are shrubs, either what are known as “low bush” or wild blueberries, or “high bush” which are the cultivated varieties. The wild blueberries are much smaller in size than the high bush types, and are sought out by connoisseurs for their natural sweetness and intense color. The blueberry is related to the huckleberry, the bilberry, the cowberry and the New England cranberry. They all produce what is known as a “false berry,” an accessory fruit which contains an inferior ovary. The blueberries have a flared crown at their top, and they turn from pale green to reddish-purple to their characteristic deep blue when ripe.

Interesting is the fact that wild blueberries are a fire tolerant bush that actually benefits from a periodic burning as it regenerates quickly and does better when competing vegetation is removed. While there are truly wild blueberries, the term “wild” has been adopted as a marketing term for blueberry producers who manage low bush blueberry farms. Usually the plants are not planted or genetically manipulated, but they are pruned or burned periodically and pests are controlled. Maine is the leading state for low bush blueberries and many communities have blueberry festivals that rival Maine’s other most famous food product, the lobster.


What we have in our garden, and what you find at most farm stands, are the high bush blueberries, of which there a number of varieties, each with its own distinct color and flavor. These berries are in season from mid-July through until late August to early September. Blueberries freeze very well and they are sold as individually quick frozen (IQF) by processors. Of course, they are made into a variety of products from jams and jellies to muffins, pancakes and cereals, and they are sold as puree or as juice.

My grandson, Myles Thomas Nolan, age 1+, is a big fan of frozen fruit pops made with blueberries. Here’s how his mother, Chelsea, prepares them:

This recipe takes 10 minutes to make 4 5 oz. pops, although they take several hours in the freezer before they are frozen enough to eat.

Blueberry Pops

1 cup Fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained
¼ tsp Fresh thyme
Juice of 1 lime
½ cup Blueberry juice
¼ cup Honey

Process the blueberries and the rest of the ingredients in a blender until smooth, or leave them somewhat chunky, if you like. Divide evenly amongst 4 5 oz. paper or plastic drink cups. Place in the freezer, and after an hour insert a stick into the center of each one. Freeze until completely frozen, a couple of hours or overnight. After removing from the freezer, let stand at room temperature a few minutes before removing the cup and serving immediately.

Chelsea also makes this Blueberry Buckle, which is a form of cobbler, on which more later. This recipe serves 6 to 8, and without the topping can also be served for breakfast.

¾ cup Sugar
¼ cup Butter, at room temperature
1 each Egg, large
½ cup Milk
2 cups AP Flour, sifted, plus 1 tablespoon to toss with the berries
2 tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Salt
2 cups Fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and grease and flour a 9’ square pan.

Combine the sugar, butter and egg and beat with a mixer until well mixed. Stir in the milk. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, add to the batter and stir well. Toss the blueberries with the tablespoon of flour, and with a spatula fold the blueberries into the batter. Spread in the prepared pan.

For the topping:

½ cup Sugar
1/3 cup Flour, sifted
½ tsp Cinnamon, ground
4 tbl Butter
Whipped cream or ice cream, to serve

Mix together the sugar, flour and cinnamon. Work in the butter with a pastry blender or fork. Spread the topping over the batter.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Finally, just a word on what is a cobbler, a term that means two similar, but distinctly different dishes, depending on whether you are in America or in the United Kingdom. In the US, a cobbler is a dessert, usually made with fruit, in a batter that rises up around it as it bakes. In the UK, it is a savory dish, usually containing lamb and vegetables, with a scone topping. Variations on the American cobbler include the Betty, the Buckle, the Slump, the Grunt and the Sonker. Crisps and crumbles are similar deserts, but distinctive as they don’t have the biscuit or cake-like toppings. New England varieties include the Grunt and the Slump which are cooked in a cast iron skillet and the topping added as a form of dumpling over the fruit. The Betty (also known as the Brown Betty) is a bread pudding-like mixture while the Sonker is a deep-dish cobbler native to North Carolina.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Sweet corn




This is the start of one of summer’s most anticipated and enjoyed seasons, that of sweet corn. It’s a season that isn’t as transient as some local fruits and vegetables, like asparagus or strawberries or English peas. It lasts from late July until frost, sometime in late October, if we’re lucky. The longer the season, the sweeter the corn, so let’s all get ready (as I know you already are) for some fun eating over the next few months.

Now corn is a big subject, and the sweet corn story is only a small part of the big picture. I am not going to discuss the damage corn has done to the American health and waistline today as that is a matter for future writings. Suffice it to say, the US farm policy dealing the production of corn in this country is a travesty that, while it perhaps had some good intentions, has resulted in failed policies that have perpetuated a culture of obesity, diabetes and heart disease amongst a large portion of our population, to say nothing of the environmental damage it’s growth has caused, the rise of the corporate genetically-modified seed companies that it has spawned, and the enslaving of the farmer to those seed producers whose primary motivation is pure profit, not the betterment of mankind, despite their advertising to the contrary. This discussion, exacerbated today by the use of corn-based fuels in the form of ethanol, will have to wait until the growing and eating season is behind us, snow covers our landscape, and we have more time for reflection.

Throughout the world, what we call corn is known as maize, a derivative of its Latin name, Zea mays. There are 5 major categories of corn, with each kind distinguished by a different composition of their endosperm, the hard outer surface of the corn kernel. Maize originated in the Central American region known as Mesoamerica, and once discovered by the Spaniards in their late 15th and early 16th century excursions to the west, spread throughout the rest of the world. It is theorized that maize developed from the teosinte plant, Zea mexicana, a large grass that grows in open woodlands and savannahs and was domesticated in Mexico. As the third largest human food crop in the world, behind wheat and rice, it is vital to many cultures for their survival. In this country, more corn is fed to livestock than to humans, although its proliferation as a food additive, primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, has had significant impact by its inclusion in so many American food products,

While it is thought that the high-protein popcorn type corn was first domesticated, all five types of corn seem to have been indigenous to the western hemisphere. Along with flint corn, popcorn consists of large amount of storage protein surrounded by granules of starch. Dent corn, what we know as “cow corn,” has a “waxy” starch at the crown of the kernel. This produces its namesake depression, or “dent” in the dried kernel. Dent corn is the most commonly used feed corn, but is also used for ground corn products like corn meal, polenta, grits and some corn flours. Blue corn, better known in the Southwest, is the best known of the flour corns, and is easily ground due to its soft endosperm, which contains more starch than protein. And last is our sweet corn, which has a wrinkled, sugary endosperm that contains more sugar than starch and is eaten while immature. Indian corn is a flour or flint variety, and is used primarily as a fall decoration with little use as a foodstuff.

The early corn now appearing at farm stands and farmers’ markets is almost exclusively yellow in color, although bi-color varieties like “Sugar and Gold” or “Butter and Sugar” will become the standard in a few short weeks. Later in the summer, after the dog days of August, the sublime white varieties like Silver Queen will make their appearance and signal that the beginning of the end of the sweet corn season is approaching.

The longer the corn grows and the hotter the weather, the sweeter the corn gets. Early varieties excite our imagination as we recall the delicious nectar we enjoyed last fall, however they tend to disappoint us if just boiled or steamed and slathered with sweet butter, salt and pepper, as their sugars are not yet fully developed. Better to wait till later in the season to enjoy them this way, although I have a couple of early season cooking methods that I utilize to enhance the corn’s natural flavors.

First, I like to grill my corn whether early in the season, mid-season and late season. There are many methods one can employ to grill corn, but I only use the “husk it and grill it” method. Half husking the corn, soaking the ears in water before grilling, or wrapping in aluminum foil methods do not work for me. The key to enjoying early season grilled corn is to caramelize those sugars that are contained in the corn’s endosperm. The caramelization of these sugars, if not carried out to extreme, causes these sugars to start to break apart, releasing a cascade of chemical reactions that add a new variety of flavor points including “buttery” and “milky” and “fruity” and “flowery.” Relatively bland early season corn becomes memorable, and an apt precursor for a summer season full of rich, sweet corn flavor.

Get your grill going and preheated. Husk the corn just like you were going to boil or steam it. I don’t lubricate it with oil or anything else. I just place it on the preheated grill naked. Within a few minutes, turn the corn to see if it has started to brown. It won’t turn color uniformly, so don’t be concerned about that. Keep turning every few minutes until it is getting a deep, rich brown, not black, all over. If you overcook it and start hearing the kernels start to pop or sputter, you’ve gone a little too far, but try the corn anyways as you’ll be surprised at how sweet it becomes, even if quite dark. I remove my corn to a towel lined plate, cover it to keep it warm, and rush it to the picnic table, where I have fresh unsalted creamery butter, and my salt and pepper grinders standing by. Everyone digs in, and conversation takes a temporary backseat while the first ears are consumed.

Another fresh corn recipe we like that works pretty well with early season corn is a simple corn salad. Perfect for a picnic, this salad can be served chilled or at room temperature.

Fresh Corn Salad Serves 4 to 6

5 ea. Fresh corn, shucked
1 ea. Red onion, peeled and diced
3 tbl. Cider vinegar
3 tbl. Extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp. Salt, Kosher or sea or grind your own, as I do
½ tsp. Pepper, freshly ground
½ cup Fresh basil, chiffonade

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and simmer the husked corn for 3 minutes to remove the starchiness and just cook it through. Immediately remove the ears and place in a bowl of cold or iced water to stop the cooking and set the color. When the ears are cool, remove them and slice the kernels off the cob.

Mix the corn with the red onion and dress with the cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Chiffonade the basil at the last second and add to the salad when ready to serve. If the salad lacks sweetness, I add a tablespoon or so of maple syrup, but take care to not to overdo it or the syrup will predominate.

There are lots more uses for fresh corn, and there will be future columns to discuss additional corn based recipes you can enjoy this summer.