Sunday Supper: Corn on the Cob

The husks pile up faster than the conversation does, and that's the whole point.

My husband shucks corn the way some men work on cars: slow, methodical, no wasted motion, and not particularly interested in talking while he does it. I shuck corn the way I do most things, which is to say I get distracted halfway through the second ear because somebody started telling a story worth stopping for.

Between the two of us, the corn eventually gets shucked. The stories, more often than not, get told first.

That is the part of corn on the cob that never makes it into a recipe card. The cooking itself takes five minutes and barely qualifies as cooking. The shucking takes longer, asks more of you, and tends to happen with other people sitting nearby doing the exact same thing with their own hands. It is one of the last kitchen chores left that still pulls people outside and keeps them there.

And this Fourth of July, Moore County will have another reason to gather around corn. The Metro Moore County Volunteer Fire Department will be selling 1,000 ears of roasted corn beginning at 9 a.m. July 4 on the Square. Buy an ear, support the volunteers, and consider it the easiest side dish decision you’ll make all week.

The Corn

Buy it the same day you plan to eat it, or as close to that as you can manage. Corn begins converting its sugar to starch the moment it's pulled from the stalk, and that conversion is what separates corn that tastes sweet from corn that tastes like not much of anything. A day or two in the refrigerator is forgivable. A week is not.

Look for husks that are tight and green, not dried out or yellowing at the edges. The silk at the top should be a pale gold and slightly sticky, not dark brown and brittle. Pull the husk back an inch or two at the top before you buy, if the seller allows it, and check that the kernels are plump and packed in even rows all the way to the tip. Gaps near the top usually mean the ear was picked too late.

Don't shuck it until you're ready to cook it. The husk is doing real work keeping the corn from drying out, and an ear shucked too far ahead of time loses moisture it won't get back.

The Shucking

This is the part that takes the longest and matters the least to the final result, which is exactly backward from how most people treat it. Pull the husk down from the top in long strips, working around the ear, then snap it off at the base along with the stem. Pull away the silk in handfuls, then run your palm down the ear once or twice to catch what's left clinging to the rows.

Do this outside if you can. The husks and silk make a mess that's far easier to deal with on a porch or a patch of grass than on a kitchen floor, and there's a reason this job has historically migrated to the porch in households all over Moore County. It isn't only about the cleanup. A task that occupies the hands but not the mind tends to loosen up whoever's doing it, and some of the more honest conversations in a family happen over a pile of corn rather than across a dinner table.

The Cooking

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Salt is optional here and won't do much either way; corn this fresh doesn't need help. Drop the shucked ears in, return the water to a boil, and cook for four to five minutes. That's it. Corn fresh enough to matter doesn't need to be cooked into submission, and boiling it longer than that starts to toughen the kernels rather than soften them.

Grilling is the other standard method, and plenty of Moore County families prefer it. Pull the husks back without removing them completely, twist them at the base to make a handle, and lay the ears directly on a hot grill, turning every few minutes until the kernels show some color and a little char at the edges. This method asks for slightly more attention than boiling, but the smoky edge it gives the corn is worth it to anyone who's tried both.

A few households skip the husk entirely and grill the corn naked, rotating it directly over the flame until it's charred in spots all the way around. This produces a deeper, smokier flavor but a slightly tougher bite, and it's a matter of preference rather than correctness.

Butter, Salt, and the Sugar Question

Butter while the corn is still hot enough to melt it on contact. A pat run down the length of the ear, turning it as you go, covers more ground than a single swipe and wastes less butter than most people think.

Salt after, not before. Salting the boiling water or the raw ear can toughen the kernels slightly, and there's no upside to taking that risk when salting the finished corn does the same job without it.

A short list of what some households add to the boiling water, for better or worse:

• A spoonful of sugar, for cooks who believe it sweetens the corn further
• A splash of milk, an older trick some grandmothers swear softens the kernels
• Nothing at all, for cooks who consider a good ear of corn complete on its own

This column comes down on the side of nothing at all but won't pretend that's the only defensible position at the table.

Eaten With Both Hands

Corn on the cob is one of the only foods on a Sunday table that gets a pass on table manners, even at the table with the good dishes out. Butter ends up on chins. People go ear by ear, row by row, holding the cob with both hands like it's the only thing on the plate that matters in that moment. Nobody's trying to make it look elegant, and that's rare for a Sunday spread built mostly around presentation.

Maybe that's part of why it disappears as fast as it does. In a meal where the gravy gets poured just right and the rolls get arranged in the basket, corn on the cob is the one thing everyone agrees not to fuss over.

Corn Beyond the Cob

An ear of corn that doesn't make it to the table whole still has plenty of places to go. Cut from the cob, it becomes creamed corn, fried corn, or the base of a good corn pudding, depending on what else is in the kitchen that day. Corn cut and frozen at the height of summer is one of the more reliable ways a Moore County pantry makes it through winter still tasting like July.

The cobs themselves aren't waste, either. Some cooks simmer them in stock or in the cooking water for soup, since there's a good amount of corn flavor left behind in the cob after the kernels come off. It's a small, frugal habit, and one more example of how little actually goes to waste in a kitchen that's been feeding a family for a long time.