Still frittering away our resources...

Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy when you publicly complain about something and then you find that they've changed what you were complaining about?

Well, today I don't.



Two years ago I complained because I opened a new package of oats and found the tamper-proof band was made out of corn.  What a waste of food.

This morning I opened a new package of oats and found a little change in the wording.  Now it's made from "plants," not "corn."

Fifteen minutes on google reveals -- wait for it -- it's still made from corn, even though somebody in the public relations office apparently decided it would sound better to say "plants."

"Our process does not require corn," the website says, "In the future this will include cellulosic raw materials, agricultural wastes and non-food plants."

But for now, "In North America, corn has been used first because it is the most economically feasible source of plant starches."

That's your tax dollars at work, folks; corn is subsidized by the government so that we can have cheap tamper-proof bands on our oatmeal.  Without the subsidies do you suppose maybe they would make bands out of agricultural waste and non-food plants?  Do you think that would be a good idea?

First corn of spring

Yes, they have corn on the cob all winter in the grocery store, but I don't buy it, fearing that it will taste like cardboard.  I'll buy tomatoes now and then, knowing they'll taste insipid when raw but will caramelize into something quite nice after 20 minutes in a pan.  And I'll buy eggplant, carrots and celery all winter even though I have no idea where they're grown or how that is accomplished in the cold weather.

But for other produce I'm perfectly willing to wait for the season.  That includes corn.

So yesterday I couldn't resist.  The good news: the corn was excellent.  You might even have thought it was July.  I hope this is an omen that winter is finally over and this summer will be good for the growing things.

Close the window, please

Our fruit market has the habit of cutting windows in its corn, presumably so you can see whether the ear looks good.  I'm not sure what you might expect to see in a window that would cause you to not buy the corn -- in my experience, when corn is disappointing it's because the top inch or so hasn't developed its kernels fully, or if a worm has somehow gotten in there -- neither of which you'd be likely to see through the window.  I wonder how long it takes the guy in the back to cut all those needless holes.

But my big complaint: the windows prevent you from sticking the corn in the oven to roast, a technique I like if I'm already making chicken or baked potatoes or something else.   (I stick the ears in exactly as they come from the market, on a cookie sheet in case they leak, for about a half hour at 400, give or take, whatever temperature I'm using for the rest of the meal.)  

Once this year I really wanted to roast some corn with windows so I cobbled together some extra husks to cover the hole, tied on with some husk and pinned in place with toothpicks.  It sort of worked, although the part under the window was a lot more done than the rest of the ear.

So now I ask the guy at the market if he has any corn with no windows.  He always does, and I haven't found a bad ear yet.  If you ask me, cutting windows has no upside.  But I guess it's part of some marketing mystique.

Bad manners at the market

I don't like to say bad things about the state of my birth, but while visiting there earlier this month I was grossed out at the supermarket.

For some reason it's the custom in northern Michigan to strip the husks from your corn right there at the market.  Although they place a crate or two on the floor for the debris, when the crates get full it's apparently acceptable to just leave your organic waste on the display table, right on top of the corn.

By the end of the afternoon, you need an extra five minutes to root around underneath the cornhusks to find intact ears to buy.

I have always believed that corn will dry out as soon as you husk it, so I don't understand why the compulsion to do it hours before dinner at the market.  And of course, stripping it early precludes roasting the corn in its husk over the campfire coals.

Most important, it's nasty to find your nice fresh food under a layer of garbage. Yuk.

Frittering away our resources

I opened a new pack of oats this morning and what did I find --

That's right, the security band around the top of the container was made of corn.

I recalled that last year's heat and drought created the lowest corn yields in more than a decade, causing corn prices to soar, that cattle were being fed cookies and candy bars in lieu of corn.  We may be wishing for a candy bar ourselves this year, as corn prices start to spill over into higher prices for chicken, meat and other human foodstuffs.

But corn producers, a powerful economic and political bloc, have branched out into all kinds of other uses for their crop.  Let's don't even talk about the shameful requirement to convert corn into ethanol, a bad public policy that would never have occurred if Iowa's presidential caucuses were held in April.

Let's just focus on making oatmeal packaging out of corn.  I think it's a dumb idea.  A better idea: use paper for packaging and use corn for food.

Corn in the oven

We had decided in the morning to have baked chicken, so it had been defrosting all day.  Then we acquired a huge load of vegetables from the market, including four ears of corn.  When we drifted into the kitchen at 5:15 to organize dinner, we realized -- the air conditioning wasn't working in that wing of the house!

I had spent the day in my basement studio, where it's always ten degrees cooler than upstairs.  My  husband had spent the afternoon in his office, which is on the other air conditioner (it's a sprawling house, with two separate heating/cooling systems).  Neither of us had noticed that the kitchen and its neighbors were getting hotter and hotter.

But now, cooking seemed like a really bad idea.  We were committed to the chicken, so I turned on the oven and stuck it in.  And then it crossed our minds that it would be neat to cook the corn in the oven, as long as it was on anyway, rather than our usual method of boiling water on top of the stove.

I've never cooked corn in the oven, so I did a fast google on recipes.  I checked out five different recipes, and got no guidance.  One called for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, one called for an hour at 400.  Some called for taking the husks off and wrapping the ears in foil, some called for just putting the ears on the oven rack without any preparation.  Plus your choice of any combinations and permutations and interim approaches.

I decided to do as little preparation as possible.  I sliced off the stem end of the ears, hoping that might make it easier to strip the husks and silk when the corn was done.

I was afraid the ears might ooze liquid from the pierced kernels as they baked, so I put them on a cookie sheet rather than just on the rack.  The oven was at 410 degrees.  Forty minutes later we pulled them out, opened one and did a taste test -- it was magnificent!

The husks were a little browned, and the silk rubbed off easily as we peeled off the husks and used them to grab and remove the silk.

Who knows whether the corn was just great to start with, or how much the cooking method improved the flavor.  But we'll definitely try this again, any time the oven is on for another purpose.  Much easier, not to mention cooler, than any stovetop preparation.

Corn off the cob

I don't remember why my mother started offering to cut the corn off the cob for her pampered family;  perhaps it was when one of us kids had loose teeth, but pretty soon it became a permanent menu option.  I am embarrassed to recall that I was always willing to have Mom do it for me, but in fairness, when Mom wasn't around not only did I do it for myself but I offered to do it for anybody else in sight.  In sharp contrast to my dad, who if Mom wasn't around made anybody else in sight do it for him.

I've always been on the fastidious side when it comes to eating.  Given a choice between grabbing that barbecued sparerib or trying to cut the meat off the bone with knife and fork, I'll always try the silverware first.  I'll eat watermelon with a spoon and order ice cream in a cup rather than a cone.  I'll slice the peaches into a bowl in the kitchen and then wash up before eating.  I just don't like getting my hands wet, greasy and sticky at the table (next thing you know, that ick has transferred itself to your newspaper!).

My husband, on the other hand, likes his corn the traditional way, eaten off the cob.  So when the corn is ready, we enter into a choreographed kitchen ballet.  He gets the first ear out of the pot, dried off in a towel and outfitted with little plastic corn-shaped holders.  He applies butter, salt and pepper and then takes his plate to the table, where he starts right in eating.

Meanwhile I get the next two ears, slice the kernels into a bowl, and apply my own butter, salt and pepper.  By the time I get to the table, he's almost done eating his first ear.  While I eat mine with a fork, he returns to the kitchen to get his second ear ready.  Surprisingly, we often finish eating at almost the same time.

No matter which way you do it, eating corn is a big production, and we've decided it just doesn't mix with eating anything else.  If possible, we get the rest of the meal underway so that after the 10-minute corn course, what's left can be served out immediately onto clean plates.  If not, we take a brief intermission while the second course is prepared and served. 

This has been the best corn year in our memory.  We've had excellent corn from springtime on, starting with the Florida crop and heading north.  Tonight we had local corn and it upheld the high standard of excellence.  My husband thinks that corn in general has improved, with new varieties, and that it's been better across the board for several years now.  I'm not so sure; I think this year has been exceptional thanks to some climatic perfect storm that may not happen again.  In either case, we're taking advantage of it.

PS -- there are lots of ways to cook corn.  My favorite is to cover the corn with about an inch of cold water, put a wire rack on top to keep the ears submerged, cover the pot and bring it to a boil.  After a minute of boiling, it's ready!