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It's Corn Fest Time! - Page 3

© Susan Ward

You can also judge corn's maturity by the state of the corn's silk; when it's mature, the silks will be brown and dry at the ear tip. Richard Jauron (of the Department of Horticulture at Iowa State University) explains how to estimate sweet corn's harvest date from the date of the silk's emergence in "Harvesting Sweet Corn".

The University of Saskatchewan's Gardenline article "Growing Sweet Corn" offers some excellent tips for producing a corn crop to be proud of. One practice that I've started to follow is their advice to take a pail of water and ice out to the garden when I harvest corn; immersing the cobs in ice cold water as soon as they've been picked ensures maximum sweetness! Leave the cobs in the water until you boil or barbecue them. To harvest corn, firmly grasp a full ear, bend it downward, and pull it toward the ground with a turning motion.

Using Your Corn

The traditional thing to do is to boil fresh corn. It's easy and delicious. All you need to do is boil the water, add your shucked, washed corn, and boil it for approximately 5 minutes (exactly how long depends on the age and size of the corn). Don't salt the water; adding salt will make corn tougher. It's traditional, too, to serve boiled corn on the cob with butter, but why not be adventurous and try something different, such as sprinkling it with herbs such as thyme, paprika, or chives, or dusting it with garlic powder or black pepper?

Barbecued corn is my favourite; it's even less work than boiling corn, because you don't need to shuck the corn first. Soak the corn, husk and all, in cold water for 30 minutes, and then put on the grill at the low heat setting. Cook for about 25 minutes with the hood closed, turning the corn after 15 minutes. Remove, and let cool for a few minutes, before peeling back the husk, and enjoying the sweet taste of your fresh corn.

If you don't want to eat your corn right away, you can freeze it (for up to 6 months). The Texas A&M Extension home economists offer two ways of doing this. Shuck the corn and blanch it by cooking it in boiling water or steam for 7 to 10 minutes, plunging the corn into ice water immediately after blanching. Drain and wrap each cob in plastic wrap. Pack in freezer bags, remove air, label and seal. However, "old-timers", they say, just put the ears into a freezer bag, husk and all. The corn can then be microwaved (still unhusked), and shucked just before eating, a procedure that prevents freezer burn and supposedly keeps the corn garden fresh. (Each ear of unhusked corn should be microwaved for approximately 4 minutes.)

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