Outside Minnesota, the month of August has nary a holiday. Many people just let the hot, humid month hang there, lazily dipping its toes off the dock. But here, we know August shimmers like the last few grains of sand falling through the hourglass, telling us our time in the sun is waning. So we celebrate life and our own holidays with “the fest,” not the Great Minnesota Get-Together parking extravaganza, but the local fair, the carnival in the church parking lot. The one where your softball team and the mayor dress as clowns and chuck candy at kids.
For me, it was Corn Days in Long Lake, where our corner was prime squatting for the parade, my sister was a Corn Princess, and for two days you could eat all the corn you could handle for $1.50. The night before the fest, I would ride my bike to church and help shuck the corn, husks and silk flying through the warm evening air. The next day we’d sit in the grass with butter glossing our faces and kernels jammed in our braces as we watched the boys to see who got cuter over the summer. The taste of a hot, plump, buttery cob is inextricably tied to the feelings of those last heady days of summer—of contentment and divine satisfaction.
If you believe as I do that corn is a heavenly gift that brings farm boys to roadside stands with heaping pickups, we’re not the first. Some ancient tribes believe that the Creator gave the People one last gift before placing them on Mother Earth—four kinds of corn. Yellow from the South for the advent of spring and new life; red from the West for long lives with the sun; white from the North for strength; and blue from the East for wisdom and understanding. The People were instructed to be corn’s caretakers and to use corn for food, medicine, and prayer. Judging by the fact that corn now grows on every continent except Antarctica, the People have done their job.
Corn, or maize, as most of the planet knows it, is actually in the grass family, despite its omnipresence in veggie medleys. This grass is differentiated from its relatives by the large seed heads (cobs) and shorter growth rate, but it’s still considered a cereal crop. The origination of this crop is believed to be in the Americas, and archaeologists have found evidence that it predates humans in some regions.
A smite of controversy surrounds the global dissemination of maize, whether it be pre- or post-Columbian, and no one can actually track how it came to exist all over the planet. For a Midwesterner, it can be a bit odd to see long waving cornfields outside of Bangkok, but where else would they get the baby corn they love so much? It took the Europeans awhile to warm up to the cob. Knowing it mainly as feed for the swine, the Parisian guests of Alice B. Toklas called her a savage for trying to feed it to them.
Despite the kernel’s long history, its mysteries are still being unlocked. Did you ever notice that there are always an even number of rows on a cob? Or that there is one piece of silk for every kernel? So far, we’ve discovered more than 3,500 uses for corn or corn products, including chewing gum, icing, fireworks, ethanol, antibiotics, soap, paint, vitamins, and film. One bushel (56 pounds) of corn can produce enough sweetener for 325 cans of pop, oil for two pounds of margarine, enough starch for a ton of paper, or 15 pounds of carbon dioxide fizz in soft drinks. And consider the beautiful mysteries behind the liquid corn of Kentucky, where a good day is spent sippin’ mash and talkin’ trash.
It’s possible that your personal summer corn fest comes without the cob. Maybe you enjoy your niblets freed and scooting around a plate. Maybe it’s hot-from-the-oven cornbread you crave, or huitlacoche, a corn-fungus delicacy in Mexico. You could be a polenta freak, or a corn-flake junkie who pours corn syrup on morning cereal. Whether it’s hush puppies or corn pone, tamales or tortillas, you are not alone.
Chef Rachel Rubin of Bobino is really just a Peruvian girl with nothing but love for the ear o’ plenty. Her menu last month included grilled young corn to accompany the octopus ceviche. Pop in to see what she’s planning this month with the organic fresh corn she gets in weekly. If you want to try the cob with something different, eat it Elote style, like they do at the Burrito Mercado in St. Paul. A fresh hot ear of corn is smothered with queso fresco (fresh cheese) and a sprinkle of chipotle. But if you can, try to eat it Katharine Hepburn style: Walk up to a stalk, pluck and shuck, and dig right in. As the late great Kate believed, 10 minutes off the stalk and it’s a whole other ballgame.
To make sure you understand the truly magical properties of corn, in some August of your life, make a pilgrimage to the maize mecca of Mitchell, South Dakota, and view the world’s only Corn Palace. It’s really a drive away from a cold winter with no corn memories.
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