Although
I love the taste and texture of fresh corn, eating corn on the cob has never
been one of my favorite mealtime activities.
The corn takes up too much room on the plate, for one thing, and the
butter runs off and pools under the
cob instead of staying put. Those reasons are good, but what ruins corn on the
cob for me is my memory of feeding the hogs on my dad’s farm.
In
these days when the field corn has dried on its stalks, farmers drive huge John
Deere combines through the field. They are called combines because the machine combines
all tasks into one operation. It gobbles up the whole corn stalk, chops it up, removes
the kernels from the cobs, spits out the debris and pours shelled corn into a
waiting grain truck. A whole field is harvested in just a few hours.
In
my dad’s day, corn was harvested by hand over a period of weeks. Dad would
hitch up Babe and Belle to the farm wagon and drive to the beginning of a row
of corn. He climbed down, pulled on his gloves, and twisted ears of dried corn
off the stalks one by one, tossing them into the wagon while the big horses
waited patiently. When Dad was ready to move down the row, he spoke softly to
the team of horses, who moved forward until he called, “Whoa.”
Later
Dad shucked the corn by hand and stored the golden ears in the corn bin,
conveniently located on the side of the barn nearest the pig pen. Dad always
kept several brood sows that produced litters of piglets twice a year. The
dried corn on the cob was a principal part of their diet and when I helped Dad
with the evening chores it was my job to fill a bucket with ears of corn and
toss them over the fence into the pig pen. I was forbidden to go into the pen,
for mature hogs are powerful and dangerous omnivores.
The
sows were in hog heaven, crunching, snuffling, grunting, and slobbering as they
stripped kernels from the cobs. Somehow, after witnessing their eating habits,
I lost interest in eating corn on the cob.
A
better way for humans to consume fresh corn is to heat some butter in a
saucepan or skillet, cut the kernels off the cobs, put the corn kernels in the
butter, and sauté them for a few minutes. Finish the dish off with some salt and
pepper, and eat like a civilized person.
Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer.