71. The Corn-icles of Summer, Part II
You don't need to peel to find gold.
Welcome to the second instalment of our series about making the most out of corn season.1 In the first part, we highlighted some of the top-tier places to buy corn in and around the Greater Toronto Area. This time we’re looking at how to pick a good ear from a bad one. It’s much easier than you think.
In the summer of 2020, I saw a note posted over the loose ears of corn for sale at Fiesta Farms that read, “In the interest of health and safety, please do not peel corn in store.” Brilliant, I thought, using the pandemic as a pretence to get rid of the scourge of every summer, in-store corn peeling.
Surely stores loved it. No bin set out meant no pile of husks or naked ears tossed aside, no mess, and lower trash haulage fees.2 I definitely loved it because it pains me to see doofuses doofusing. Sadly, it did not last, and things have returned to their awful pre-pandemic ways.
Wait. Did I just call you a doofus?
Well, if you peel corn in store, it’s true. And it’s not my opinion; it’s a fact. You’ve wasted your time and energy3 and made the corn that you do take home immediately worse. Because a) there are much easier ways to determine if you should buy any given ear and b) (as I have already mentioned in the footnotes) husks help corn retain moisture. Peeling them so far in advance of cooking them, especially if you are not cooking them that day, will cause them to start drying out and become tough and flavourless. And if you’re peeling them in-store and then keeping them in the refrigerator, whose dry air actively sucks moisture out of food, you’re ruining your corn. It’s a small wonder you even like corn after treating it in a way that all but guarantees it won’t be great.
To find the best corn in the pile, you don’t even need to look at it. You just need your hands to determine two things. The first applies to evaluating pretty much every piece of produce before you buy it: feel how heavy it is. Compare it to another, similar-sized apple/orange/cucumber/ear of corn. Is it heavy for its size? If so, the weight difference is probably due to moisture content. (Although for corn it could also be that the ear was picked too early and didn’t have a chance to bulk out its kernels. Either way, not desirable.) The heavier one is going to be fresher, more tender, and juicier because of the extra moisture it contains.
The second test is what I call “The Felt Tip.” Feel the silk coming out of the tip of the husk and reject any that are dry. They were picked too long ago and have substantially dried out. Remember in Part I when I said I suspected some corn of not being picked that day? That’s why. The silks were as dry as a hay bale. The silk of really fresh corn will still be at least damp, if not wet.4
Done together, these two tests will ensure you’re getting the best ears from the pile in front of you. It won’t guarantee that it will be the best corn you’ve ever had, but neither will peeling it. If you’ve absorbed the lessons of Part 1, you know where you’re most likely to find the best corn. Now you know how to find the best of the best. All that remains is how to prepare it the best, i.e. Part III.
(BTW, I just officially declared it peak corn season on my subscriber chat, an ongoing conversation among subscribers to The Plate Cleaner.)
This is the place that I would usually write something like, “If you have a different way of finding the best ears, let me know in the comments,” but I won’t in this case because there isn’t a better way. To demonstrate that this method is foolproof, I bought two ears of corn. Using the two tests above, I chose one that I knew would be good and one that I knew wouldn’t be good and filmed myself peeling them to see if I was right.
What I’m consuming…
I’ve been fascinated by Jungle Jim’s International Market, a massive, unhinged—calling it “a supermarket” seems wrong—retail oddity near Cincinnati, since I first learned of it. 200,000 square feet of shopping with over 180,000 different products. But also a monorail, a fire engine, a robotic lion named Elvis, and a giant teak bigfoot, to name but a few non-food attractions. And a Bob Uecker-like owner who walks around the store in a wizard costume. One day, when travel to the US is an option again, I will make it there. In the meantime, this video is a great demonstration of what it’s like there.
What’s on the menu (besides corn)…
Spaghetts—I tried my first Hugo Spritz at the Queen and Beaver last week while catching up with some dear old friends over dinner and drinks. A mix of elderflower liqueur (St-Germain is most common), prosecco, and soda water garnished with mint and lemon, the New York Times says it’s poised to knock off the Aperol Spritz as the “king of breeezy summer drinking.” It was tasty and refreshing, particularly on a hot summer evening, but it mostly reminded me that I have been neglecting my preferred spritz: the Spaghett.
I first read about the Spaghett in Bon Appetit in 2019, have turned a bunch of people on to the drink, and yet every summer I have to be reminded that it exists. Think of it as an easily made, more blue-collar version of an Aperol Spritz. Open an ice-cold bottle of Miller High Life.5 Take a few swigs to get the level of the beer below the middle of the label on the neck. Pour in 3 tablespoons6 of Aperol and two tablespoons of lemon juice. Put your thumb over the top of the bottle and invert it to mix. Drink up!Hygrade All-Beef Weiners—When I saw a pack of weiners with the logo of my much beloved and bemourned Montreal Expos on it at The Grocery Outlet, I made the joke that it seems everyone who has seen them makes: Did they expire when the team did?
They didn’t, but fittingly on-brand for the Grocery Outlet, they did expire shortly after purchase. Nothing a freezer can’t take care of. And they’re pretty good! More flavour than ones from Maple Leaf/Schneiders, which acquired Hygrade in 1993. It’s largely a Quebec-only brand. Maybe the seasoning is reminding me of a Montreal hot dog, one of my favourites.
Very sad that “Cornmaxxing” as a title for the series is only just now occurring to me.
It also saved people from themselves—the husks keep moisture in and prevent the corn from drying out and getting tough.
Yes, yes, corn needs to be peeled eventually, but if you’re peeling and rejecting some ears, you’re truly wasting your time and energy.
Assuming it’s not wet because of a cat.
If you’d like a more wholly Canadian option, swap in your favourite what I call “mowin’ the lawn reward” beer. A beer that tastes like a beer. My picks would be Left Field’s Ice Cold Beer, Great Lakes’ Premium Lager, or, for true blue collar fidelity, a 50. (Thankfully 50 is easier to find these days. Last Christmas I had to try many Beer Etores before finding any. The cashier at one said he had hear it had been discontinued. Happily, he was wrong.)
1.5 ounces, but we’ve established what I think of ounces in a previous issue.