We had corn on the cob tonight. Farmer H did not cook it on his new auction grill. He usually roasts that husky treat on the Weber, but not on Gassy G. So I had to peel off the outer leaves in order to boil our roastin' ears. That's all my mom and grandma ever called them. Roastin' ears.
Normally, I buy the cob corn packed on one of those styrofoam trays, already stripped of most of the husk. That way, you can see what you're getting. But this time, I grabbed the pointy tasseled variety from the bin. I'm always a little bit nervous peeling back the cornhusks. That probably comes from helping my grandma when I was a kid. We'd hike through the field to the big garden to pick six or eight roastin' ears for supper. The little garden was closer to the house. It only had dill and some potato hills, maybe a cucumber or two, and was right beside a tiny pond so full of perch that they often jumped out onto the bank in depression due to overcrowding. You could throw a line with a bare hook in there and catch a bucketful.
After harvesting our roastin' ears, we headed back to the carport to skin them. There was always at least one worm. Sometimes more. It was not a pleasant surprise to find one munching away on some kernels of your roastin' ear. But it WAS a surprise. Even though you were always on the lookout for a critter hiding in your future supper.
My roastin' ears this evening were worm-free. I chopped the ends off first, with a big black-handled butcher knife, and tossed the disks of kernels to the chickens pecking hopefully in the side yard. Much disappointed, I'm sure, about the lack of worms. I saved the husks for the goats. The Pony made a special delivery to their pen after I was done hacking up corn on the porch rail.
Those roastin' ears were purty as a speckled pup. In fact, they were speckled as a speckled pup. Dark yellow, light yellow and white kernels. They were as sweet as candy. Not that I ate them unboiled, of course. Some of their milky juice squirted me in the mouth while removing the cornsilk. And in the eye. And the nose. Five minutes in their 212-degree bath did not diminish their sweetness.
I apologize for stabbing them in both butt ends with two-pronged metal stabby things, attached to tiny yellow cob-corn-shaped plastic holders.
My favorite summer treat--cut the corn off the cob (if there are any left-over ears that have been cooked) and fry it in a pan with butter and some salt until it's almost light brown. (My mother used to used bacon drippings...)
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteMy grandpa used to cut the corn off the cob, because of his false teeth. I have never heard of frying up left-over roastin' ears. Does it get crunchy? Like bacon bits?
You just frizzle it up in the frying pan until the edges just begin to get lightlight brown. No, if it gets too crunchy, it can't soak up the butter/bacon drippings, silly.
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteI guess I've been watching too much Survivor, where they toast their coconut pieces until they're like popcorn kernels. Or fry up the chicken feed and eat it themselves, after eating their reward chickens.