The zen of corn on the cob

[unixronin]

Comparative corn-eating styles:

• I start at the small end and eat kernels in a continuous spiral until I reach the large end.
• cymrullewes starts at the right end and eats in a row to the other end, then indexes à là typewriter and works in the other direction.
• Goose starts at the big end, eats a continuous ring with sort of rapid squirrel nibbles, then indexes over.
• Pirate just sort of attacks hers at random as she rotates it, leaving it looking as though it's been savaged by a ferocious chipmunk.
• Wen gives hers to Goose to eat.  :-)

(Crossposted to caerllewys)

Comments

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

I'm with your wife.

But the real question becomes: "How do you butter your corn?"
I use cornbread, or a hotdog bun. (If you use the hotdog bun, then you can grill it afterwards. Nummy.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I smear the butter directly on it, then sprinkle lightly with cayenne pepper. Sometimes I smear it lightly with hoisin sauce instead.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Little single serve of butter and smear it on the row I'm getting ready to eat. If I'm all out of single serve then the stick of butter held in the wrapper, but always just the bit of corn I'm getting ready to eat.

[gdmusumeci.livejournal.com]

Typewriter-style, big end to small end.

Buttering is accomplished via a knife and a sort of double rotational motion.

[tww1fa]

I usually do typewriter style with each row in the opposite direction from the previous.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

I can add a further style.
1. Consider the longitudinal surface of the cylinder.
2. while viewing said surface as a plane, produce a spiral starting at one corner, and turning 90 degrees when hitting an edge, until you find the centre.

For buttering:
1. Take a forkfull or two of butter
2. Mash with fork and desired spices (Black pepper and Aromat for me)
3. Shape mashed mix into a line on your plate, the length of the corncob.
4. Rotate entire corncob such that the line contacts all critical points (the surface of the cylinder as mentioned above).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The challenge is now open for corn-eating in the pattern of a Sierpinski gasket mapped onto a tapered cylinder. :)

(Amusingly, I think the early stages wouldn't look too different to Pirate's corn attack ....)

[fatcook.livejournal.com]

Type-writer the large end, index and return. After rolling it in soften butter. I get my corn from a local farmer. Who needs salt?

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

Typewriter style, but I hit the return carriage and start again from the right. As for butter, I prefer to butter it with a stick in the wrapper. Does anyone remember when they sold margarine in sticks? Do they still sell margarine in sticks? But I'm a real butter gal. Oh, and then I salt the crap out of it. As I do nearly everything.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

"That's the low-price spread." -- Tom Clancy (of the Clancy Brothers, not the author)

I've never bought margarine. My mother used to buy the stuff, and I always thought it was nasty.

Ironically, New Scientist reported a couple of years ago that margarine, introduced as a healthier and less expensive alternative to butter, is actually more damaging to your health than butter is. It's all those hydrogenated oils.

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my dad went on some weird health kick in the seventies which involved margarine, decaf coffee, dehydrated onions and lots of bananas.

None of those things are good for us now. I wonder if he still swallows handfuls of vitamins and then feels safe to eat whatever crap crosses his plate.

[bfudlmint.livejournal.com]

Remember when margarine was white and came with coloring packs you had to add to it yourself to make it look like butter?

Why are bananas bad for you?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Coloring packs......?!?

This is something that never made it across the Atlantic. (Thankfully.)

[bfudlmint.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, the color capsules were caused by laws inacted by the dairy lobby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

I don't remember anymore. They might not be bad for you, but they apparently aren't as good for you as everyone has always thought.

[greyman.livejournal.com]

mmm... corn.

Back in the day, I was pat-of-butter spread with knife over whole ear of corn, salt, then spiral from the right.

But I think the folks rolling it through the butter on the plate have a good idea.

[bfudlmint.livejournal.com]

My method of eating corn depends on my mood however I always use my bottom teeth to remove the corn from the cob.

As for buttering method, I use the following steps:

1) salt corn
2) eat corn
3) laugh at people dropping the corn from greasy fingers because I didn't supply corn forks.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Ah, but how do you *cook* it? My favorite method is to microwave whole ears without shucking, then shuck after it's cooked (~6 minutes).

what?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

You give the unshucked ears to the girls, come back 15 minutes to almost silk free ears, plunge in to lightly salted boiling water for 10 minutes then pull it out and eat.

Re: what?

[tabbifli.livejournal.com]

Can I borrow your daughters for my next cook out?

Re: what?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Are you willing to pay for their airfare out there and to shuttle them off to Nana and Granddad in Spokane? Or barring that, finding unixronin a job out there? :-D

You can buy already shucked ears of corn at most grocery stores these days.

Re: what?

[tabbifli.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'd happily ferry them over to Spokane, and everyplace else. Airfare's out, though.

I wasn't sure if you wanted me to keep listening out for jobs, since it sounded as if you were settled where you are. Frustrated, but settled. I'll see what I hear about, but I don't hear much these days, I'm afraid.

The only pre-shucked ears of corn I seem to find out here are also pre-frozen. I have no idea why.

Re: what?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

It's like this, my contract definitely runs out in October. I'm desperately looking for something else. He would like to stay here. I have no real objections to it. I'd like to stay here if he got a job that could support us so I could go back to school and get in to MIT for a graduate degree in structural engineering.

I'm back in to the any port in a storm mentality which for me actually translates to putting in applications to places where I'd like to live, Switzerland, Iceland, Finland, Ireland, Germany, and British Columbia. I'm also putting in applications for places around here. Especially to the ones who want me to travel.

Maybe it isn't corn season over there yet. As soon as it actually ripens in the fields they'll have it in the produce section.

Re: what?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yes, much as I hate feeling rootless, "any port in a storm" wins. Not that I know how the heck we'd afford to move again.

Re: Rootless

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

You see it as being rooted. I see it as being trapped.

You got over Alleyne's. I still haven't gotten over NC.

Re: Rootless

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

North Carolina definitely fell under "trapped", yes. I'm just tired of moving. I've done it too often.

Re: Rootless

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

DearHeart, I meant all the years I spent in NC. Not just the ones with you.