Sunday, August 4, 2013

Corn on the Cob

Back on the farm one of my favorite things about summer was the arrival of the sweet corn.  My father always planted several rows of the sweet tasty stuff in with the field corn for the sole purpose of providing the freshest and tastiest corn for our family.  Night after night when the crop was in season we would eat corn on the cob slathered in butter and salt and dripping down our chins.  It was not a chore to put away half a dozen ears.  When I had braces and couldn't eat if off the cob I sat down at the  table with the electric knife and sheered off the sweetness onto my plate. I was not going to miss out due to a technicality.  About mid harvest when my father felt the corn had reached the peak of its sugar he would pick gunny sacks full and bring them to the house. Sometimes my aunts would come to help and we would all sit down and shuck corn for hours on end.  The preferred method for preserving was to freeze.  We would place the cobs on end on a cookie sheet and cut the kernels off with an electric knife.  The juicy goodness was then scooped into freezer bags, labeled and stacked into the freezer for future meals.  This is probably the simplest vegetable freeze you will ever come across.     If you don't have a field of your own, you can often contact one of the sellers at your local farmers market and see if you can purchase it by the bag. Or.....you could grow your own!