Nothing says summer like corn on the cob

If you’ve read my last two columns, you may have figured out that tomatoes and field peas are my special summer treats. But there’s one other food I can’t get enough of during the summer, and that’s corn, especially on the cob.

Now I may make a few of you mad, but I’m not a big fan of white corn. The original Silver Queen was pretty good, but white corn has been played with so much that, to me, it has lost that true corn flavor for sweetness.

Bi-color corn, whether you call it Peaches and Cream or Salt and Pepper, is the corn I long for every summer. It’s sweet, but still has a very pronounced flavor of corn – bright and bold, like summer itself.

For several years, the search for bi-color corn has led me to travel to find it, which hasn’t been a bad thing. Last year I traveled to Pamlico Beach for a cooler full of corn. Not only did I get great corn, but I found a part of North Carolina that I fell in love with.

This year I was privileged to get corn from a serious gardener in Beaufort County who plants two rows of corn just to save the seeds, a tradition that goes back at least to his great grandfather. You won’t have to go that far, thankfully, because a good number of farmers are now bringing bi-color to farmers’ markets. Seek it out. Bi-color corn will change your mind about great corn.

After I’ve gotten my fill of fresh corn, when the season begins around the Fourth of July, I start playing with corn on the cob. I enjoy seeing what flavors give an added boost to freshly picked corn.

One of my favorite twists is brushing hot corn with mayonnaise and sprinkling Parmesan cheese over it. Mayonnaise is a Mexican trick, and you could amp the Hispanic twist by using Cotija cheese and mixing the mayonnaise with a little crème fresh. Thanks to Latin food writer Sandra Gutierrez of Cary for that tip.

This avocado butter was a surprising experiment, and I tend to make this often. It is smooth and creamy with lots of flavor that adds to the corn without covering its glorious flavor. Any leftover butter can be used over grilled fish or shrimp.

And just for your amusement from “Good Form: Dinners Ceremonious and Unceremonious” (1890):

“Corn may be eaten from the cob. Etiquette permits this method, but does not allow one to butter the entire length of an ear of corn and then gnaw it from end to end. To hold an ear of corn if it may be a short one, by the end, with the right hand and bite from the ear is good form. A little doily, or very small napkin, is sometimes served with corn to fold about the end of a cob that is to be grasped by the hand, but this arrangement is as inconvenient as it is unnecessary.”

Give me a break. I’ll eat corn on the cob any way I please.

This story was originally published August 17, 2017 at 7:30 AM with the headline "Nothing says summer like corn on the cob."