A Love Hate Relationship with Corn

By Dana McMahan FoodConnect Louisville dana@foodconnect.com A Love Hate Relationship with Corn Corn. How can I love something so much that can be so disastrous in another form? When I was a kid I ate plates and plates of corn, freshly picked from my grandparents’ garden and cooked in a skillet by my Mama (to those of you not from the south, that’s pronounced Ma-maw, and means grandmother). Today I live in corn conflict. I abhor the effect it has on health and obesity rates in America, infiltrating everything from ketchup to bread to soda in the form of the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. But when it’s high summer, and my farm share includes ears of the green-husked goodness, I gobble it up like the candy the bad stuff sweetens. Corn is at its absolute best the day it’s picked so it’s a bit of a high-pressure veggie – decide now what you want to do with it, or consume a less-sweet, more starchy version in a few days. When I saw our ears from the farm share pickup tonight I suddenly had a craving for the skillet corn the way my Mama made it all those years ago. I called my mom to find out how to make it — funny because out of the two of us I’m usually the source of recipes. It was incredibly simple. Cut the corn off the cob, cook in a big heavy skillet with butter and a tiny pinch of salt. My mama added a teeny bit of sugar to hers, but corn is a lot sweeter these days. Stir it frequently so it doesn’t stick. The smell put me back in her kitchen when I was 10 and thought of nothing else in the world but seconds of that corn. The trauma of picking off the corn worms behind me, I could polish off two full plates in minutes. I could probably do the same now but I satisfied myself with one dish of the sweet, slightly caramelized bliss topped with a fried green tomato and poached egg, all sprinkled with some chopped basil. That’s one happy summer farm dinner.