Corn Porn

[Jenise]

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On the left, yellow corn grown by my friend Merwyn. These are smallish ears with variegated pale yellow kernels with the most amazing pure corn flavor, and these were end-of-season ears. It never gets any darker.

On the right, supermarket yellow corn that tastes of pure sugar. Better than nothing, but only that.

My favorite is silver queen white corn. It came into season here about 2 weeks ago. I buy it from a stand up the road from me. It's grown on the Indian Reservation and picked fresh every morning.

[Jenise]

My favorite is silver queen white corn. It came into season here about 2 weeks ago. I buy it from a stand up the road from me. It's grown on the Indian Reservation and picked fresh every morning.

Fresh is best! And you're certainly with the majority in preferring white. In some areas, one hardly sees yellow any more.

[Robin Garr]

And you're certainly with the majority in preferring white. In some areas, one hardly sees yellow any more.

Mary grew up on her father's small dairy farm, and he grew corn to feed the cows, mostly, but they also ate it. She bemoans the dearth not only of yellow corn but of corn in general that hasn't been bred toward higher and higher sweetness levels, many of the modern hybrids bearing names like "Candy Cane" and "Sugar Queen." She can get off on a real rant about this.

I sort of agree with her, and harbor a tinfoil-hat suspicion that the sweetening of corn is more about the economy of high fructose corn syrup than it is about consumer tastes. But I'm with her in a prefernce for heirloom corn, fresh out of the field, when you can get it from a farmers' market or specialty produce store.

I sort of agree with her, and harbor a tinfoil-hat suspicion that the sweetening of corn is more about the economy of high fructose corn syrup than it is about consumer tastes. But I'm with her in a prefernce for heirloom corn, fresh out of the field, when you can get it from a farmers' market or specialty produce store.

Nope, HFCS is made from corn starch, and dent corn (what people call cow corn) is far higher in starch than "sweet corn", and is what is used for syrup.

I like traditionally sugared varieties like silver queen or butter & sugar or bantam when I know it's just picked, but extended sugar versions are good when being shipped. I don't like the super-sugar versions

[Robin Garr]

Nope, HFCS is made from corn starch, and dent corn (what people call cow corn) is far higher in starch than "sweet corn", and is what is used for syrup.

I didn't mean a direct connection, Dale. Mary's theory is that cow corn is less common because such vast acreage is going into HFCS production. Still, I acknowledged up front that it's a tinfoil hat theory.