SWEET CORN

Another wonderful entry from Hal Borland's SUNDIAL OF THE SEASONS.  Local sweet corn has just started to come in here in Chautauqua Country, the best we have ever had.

"Sweet corn now begins to come to the pot, and if there is a more satisfying crop few countrymen can name it. Lettuce is good for the blood and the appetite, snap beans are fine, fresh taste for a few weeks, and garden-ripe tomatoes are really something. But when the first corn comes to the table, steaming, savory and ready for the customers, you can push everything else aside. Everything. Corn needs no appetizer, no accompaniment but a dash of salt, a trace of pepper, and plenty of butter. And let the cobs fall where they may.

Perhaps there are a few people, here and there, who don't appreciate sweet corn. If so, the chances are that they've known it only from a distance, so to speak. Perfection demands that corn proceed from stalk to cooking pot as fast as a man can walk, and from pot to plate with even greater dispatch. Any delays, any way-stations, rob it of some degree of flavor. And the cook who doesn't know to the second when it should come from the pot should never be trusted with it. How do you know? Well, it's a matter of instinct, mostly, fortified with a keen sense of smell. Those who would time it by the clock are rank amateurs. It simply smells done, looks done, and is done. Country cooks usually, know.

Hurry it to the pot, watch it like a hawk, dash it to the table. Then eat. And all ceremony is forgotten. So is conversation, for the first few ears, at least. After that you catch your breath and thank the Indians. Then you start all over again.

*I have been told, firmly and authoritatively, by women I respect as good cooks otherwise, that sweet corn should always be cooked by the clock. But even they disagree on exactly how long to cook it and whether to steam it or boil it. Until such advisers get together on their advice, this household will continue to ignore the clock and cook corn by smell, and I shall not alter the words above by one degree or one second."

Hal Borland
"Sundial of the Seasons"
July 1960