Red Beans & Advice for Monday, July 24
Sweet corn is here, along with two ideas that don't involve grilling
That chorus of “Hallelujah!” that you hear coming from Michigan (Handel’s version, not Leonard Cohen) heralds the arrival of a summer highlight: sweet corn.
I bought my first ears of bicolor sweet corn on Sunday at the Produce Station in Ann Arbor. Soon, booths at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market will be heaped with it, some of it harvested only minutes before the market opens.
Lots of people immediately throw their sweet corn on barbecue grills, which is understandable. But I grew up with it cooked a different way.
We got our corn from the Rowe family in Belleville, Mich., who sold it from a stand on their farm. You drove up, told Mrs. Rowe how much you wanted, and she handed sacks of corn through the car window.
Once home, we shucked it, and my mother steamed our corn in a big kettle of water on top of the stove, fishing it out with tongs when it was ready.
I recently brought those tongs out of storage, but I won’t be using them the way my mother did. I have two methods of my own for cooking sweet corn.
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