As summer comes to a close around the country, I begin to remember the cozy dishes from the Midwest. It may occur to you that I have a complete disregard for canned peas. The remainder of the year will be served to me from a can. Canned peas, canned corn, canned green beans, canned pork and beans, well you get the picture here, there will be even further canned vegetables from my grandmother and her home canning process. My family will consume nothing fresh until next August when the garden harvest resumes. By the way, we have no garden! My grandmother will have one and the vegetables from it will be canned for the winter. She will can tomatoes, green beans, corn and cherries from her two cherry trees. These trees of which I am only allowed to climb during harvest season, go figure. Looking back and talking with co-workers and friends we speak of good and bad meals. Just yesterday I was saying how there is nothing like the sweet corn of the Midwest. This could be my favorite vegetable without question but only for a limited time. Mid August to mid September, prime sweet corn picking time, if you pick or consume corn on the cob any other time of the year you are not getting what you pay for. If you eat corn on the cob from any other area you are being robbed of the sweetest taste of corn you may ever eat. As a kid I could pick an ear from the field, strip it down and eat it right there. It was the sweetest tasting corn in the world. My mom would boil some ears in a stock pot and I could eat 3 or 4 ears at one sitting. The problem would be applying the butter, salt and pepper to the ears. It wasn’t until later in life, I think my cousin Judy showed me the secret. By using the end of a loaf of bread, which no one eats any way, place the butter in two rows on either end of the bread, stick your corn with skewers and roll on top of butter using the bread like a mitten to cradle the hot corn. Roll the corn round and round until the melting goodness is dripping like a melting icicle. Salt and pepper the corn and begin your best method of corn eating, side to side like the old typewriter method or around the cob systematically going from end to end. Whichever your method, you will not be disappointed. But until you have had the Midwest corn, all other corn will pale in comparison. No canned corn or even cut fresh and frozen corn will satisfy my late summer craving. Thank goodness my mom couldn’t screw up boiling water. Thanks mom, Midwest corn on the cob rules! I give my humble apologies to those of you who have never had the pleasure of corn from corn country. So if you non Midwesterners have good sweet corn, multiply that taste by 10 and then you have Midwest corn.
