Summer's Roadside Gifts

Our city is a patchwork of random makeshift stands offering the gifts from this year's bountiful harvest of home-grown veggies. Living in farm country and so near the fields myself, I have my favorite little stand. Situated right next to the road just a short hop from my neighborhood the corn is sweet and creamy as can be, picked fresh right off the stalks each morning. Exquisite with a little bit of butter..............ok, with a whole LOT of melty butter.......and a bit of salt.

It's a serve-yourself stand, just tuck your money into the rusted toolbox, pick a sack from beneath the stand if you didn't bring your own and pick your own goodies for dinner.

A little trivia to test bump up your corn smarts......

There are always an even number of rows on an ear of corn.

There are usually 16 rows.

Ears of corn usually have 800 kernels.

If you're not from farm country, you might not know the corn you pass mile after mile after mile as you drive through the countryside is not the corn you buy and eat. Most of it is field corn for use as livestock feed. If you boiled up an ear it wouldn't taste nearly as sweet and tasty.

Soooo....what liquor is made from corn???

Bourbon! Nearly all of it made in Kentucky, bourbon has to be made from 51% corn mash.

MOST IMPORTANT....

Sweet corn will lose 40% of its sugar 6 hours after picking.

Buy fresh! Eat it right away for the sweeeeetest taste.

Later it will still be good but that sugar turns to starch.

If you really want to impress someone, ask them the three types of corn. Y'know....like if it's a really boring evening and you're sitting on the porch in your rocker and the lightning bugs haven't come out yet.....seriously, this will be impressive conversation.

The three types of corn:

Flint corn

This is what people usually call "Indian corn" ~ the corn that you usually see in the fall with kernels that are all sorts of different colors.)

Dent corn

This field corn. It pretty much gets ground up for use as livestock feed. More than 50% of the corn grown in the USA is used for feed.

Sweet corn

Don't need to tell ya 'bout this one now, do I??

Slap on a little butter and smile.

"But Deb!!! You forgot one!" you are shouting at me from the porch rocker. "What about POPCORN!!!!"

Technically, popcorn is actually a type of Flint corn.

And you knew the reason it explodes is because it's got moisture inside it, right?

Yeah, I thought you did.