The other day I stopped at a local roadside stand and bought six ears of yellow corn. I don't know the variety specifically, but the color was identically dark yellow on all six ears when raw, and identically amber and overly sweet when cooked. It had the dull, strong color and taste of canned corn, which I hate, vs. the pretty bright yellow of the corn I love.
When I was a kid, corn came from the corn field that was near our allergy doctor's office on the border of Whittier and Santa Fe Springs. With four asthmatic children we were there often, and too my grandmother drove by it on her way to our house and she often stopped there too. She would buy a dozen ears, and a dozen was always 13. We'd cook them all, and along with the summer squash and incredible tomatoes they also grew and sold at the corn field this was dinner.
The first ear I'd take was the yellowest/oldest one with biggest puffy kernels. My brother Chris on the other hand would choose the youngest, tenderest ear with the small, very pale yellow kernels. The next one I'd take would be more middle of the road, but in truth I loved them all and I especially loved them for being so different. It was always so exciting to me to see the cooked corn on the platter, and look at all the different colors and kernel patterns.
When I cook corn nowadays, I break the cobs in half before cooking. Two reasons: 1) I season them with butter, salt and pepper as a group before serving them (we use much less butter this way), and 2) it allows me to switch ear type more often and have more varied experiences as I eat.
But anymore, it's harder and harder to get that kind of variation. Maybe it's the way growers pick, or maybe the designer seeds from Big Agriculture are being bred for uniformity--whatever it is, I don't like it.
I want the corn of my childhood.
