Sweet Golden Summer Sun

I grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania in the 80's in a town called Emmaus. This meant that summer included hot and humid days in an area that had suburbs and small towns surrounded by lots of small farms which had been in families since the arrival of their German ancestors in the 1700's.

My mom grew up there as well and had friends in one family in particular. We would head to their farm sometimes to play with the kittens and spend an evening near Christmas playing their noisy games that required batteries like Operation and Perfection that my parents wouldn't let us have at home.

And towards the end of July we joyfully anticipate a phone call from them saying the crops were ready for harvest.

Their primary crop was the sweetest corn on the face of the planet and they would take the first gathering of their harvest, load it on a wagon, and sell it to friends and family in their yard. When they called to let my mom know it was available, we would load up in the family vehicle and head on out to Macungie to grab a few dozen (usually about three) to have for dinner that night.

Now, since these are the days before GMO's and all that other crazy stuff, all four of us kids learned at an early age how to look for the best corn on that wagon. Because when you have farm-to-table before it became a thing, you need to look for corn that is really full of kernals and no bugs without being able to take the husk off. (In fact, to this day when the local Olathe corn comes into the grocery store here in Colorado, I never buy it before the end of July and still find myself inspecting it as I did when I was a kid.)

Now, in the dog days of summer without air conditioning, we learned from our folks that you do all of your chores like this in the morning, put the corn in the basement (ours was finished so no critters to worry about) where it was cooler, and head to the community pool for the afternoon to stay refreshed and enjoy the sun.

And after drying off and dealing with swim gear, it was time for the shucking.

Shucking three dozen ears of corn is a necessary task done best outside. It requires a honed technique where you make the least amount of mess by peeling back the husks in just the right way to capture the corn silk and bring all of the leaves down to the bottom so you can break them off with the stem in one mass. Of course, no matter how good you got, there was still those escapees of fine brown strands which flew away to be used by the birds in their nests rather than getting into the corners of the kitchen to be annoying later.

The beautiful revealed ears of yellow and white kernels would then be placed with water in the biggest pot my mom owned and boiled to perfection. We would eat as many ears as we wanted of that sweet golden summer sun.

We always ate the corn with bread with pats of butter on them and hot dogs. The bread would serve as a pallete on which you could paint your corn with the butter by rolling it before sprinkling it with salt and pepper for optimum flavor. And the hot dogs were necessary because not only could they be boiled as well to save extra aggravation, but they served another purpose. You see, when we finished with that piece of bread after eating enough corn, it could be wrapped around the hot dog with (for me) ketchup and relish to make the perfect savory compliment to the sweetness of the corn.

The ultimate summer treat.

Now, you may be wondering how six people (four kids, two adults) consumed thirty-six ears of corn. Well, we didn't do it in one sitting.

The other awesome thing about this particular corn is that it froze well. That night my mom would cut the extra corn off of the cobs and get it into plastic storage bags and the freezer before the sun set. We would enjoy it as a treat at holidays rather than the standard frozen corn we ate the rest of the year. During Christmas and Easter dinner we could savor a bit of summer along with the turkey and ham and all the other great sidedishes that come when you are spoiled and live in an area where things are grown local and the cooks use recipes that have been passed down for generations.