Colleen's Posterous

More than just a vehicle for butter and salt?

The Trenton Farmer’s Market this week was brimming with local produce: beautiful bright red tomatoes, stripy heirloom ones, dark shinning globes of eggplant and plenty of corn. Jersey corn, sweet corn. My parents, both native Philadelphians, moved to New Jersey in the 1950s and lived there the rest of their lives, but they still acted like city folk and commented and raved on and on about the New Jersey summer bounty – tomatoes and corn. I remember many tasty summer meals and barbecues that starred farm fresh corn-on-the cob.

So seeking to connect with those great summer memories and flavors and support local farmers (though I don't know how local they really are), I bought some bicolor corn. A web site about fruits and veggies, Produce Oasis reports, “Bi-color corn has 80% yellow kernels speckled with 20% white kernels. Good quality corn has full, evenly formed and filled ears with straight rows of kernels.”

Yep, my bicolor corn from the farmer’s market was full of kernels at their finest. So I brought it home and I microwaved it. Never done that before! I used to drag out the big pot and boil lots of water for corn. A little online research and I found that wrapping in wax paper and nuking is fine. Various methods abound.

It turned out delicious, sweet and steaming. Tender and juicy. Perfect-o!

However, my corn experience left me wondering about the history of corn. More research brought out some neat facts.

A North Carolina horticultural expert, Jonathan R. Schultheis, says, “Field corn was grown in North America before 200 B.C. Field corn is produced primarily for animal feed and industrial uses such as ethanol, cooking oil, etc. In contrast, sweet corn is produced for human consumption as either a fresh or processed product.” His web page notes that the first variety of sweet corn came to us from the Iroquois Indians in 1779. Thanks Native Americans!

The big question I had was: Does the color of the corn relate to its sweetness? Like people say white corn is sweeter? Or yellow? Mr. Schulthesis says that it’s the corn’s genes that dictate sugars in the corn, and thus sweetness. There is no connection to the color of the kernels and sugars in the corn.

Hmmmm. . .I am sticking with the bicolor, just to be safe.

Below are my photos of the "ears" before cooking, during the wrapping, and "after" microwaving.