Sinking your teeth into locally grown sweet corn is one of summer's greatest treats. But like a Michigan summer, the season lasts only a few months.
With the season in full swing, it's time to get your fill of the sun-soaked sweetness. You will not be disappointed.
This year, the maize is, well, amazing. It's everything you'd expect from local Michigan corn: Sweet right off the cob with a slight crunch.
"It's a bumper crop," said George VanHoutte, who farms about 100 acres of sweet corn in Romeo. "We'd rather have too much than not enough."
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VanHoutte is selling corn at $6 per dozen, the same price as last year, at his Northern Farm Market. The market, on Van Dyke in Romeo, also has a selection of other VanHoutte Farms vegetables.
Cooking corn
When it comes to cooking corn, one easy way to make some of the best sweet corn you've ever had, you'll need to grab a cooler.
Yes. A cooler. The one you pack with beer and food and ice down. The one that keeps things cold, can also keep things hot.
Cooking corn in a cooler is a clever way especially if you have to cook a lot of ears.
With the lid on, the cooler traps in the heat from boiling water for hours. Yes, hours. I recently made about 24 ears of corn and the water stayed hot for more than 4 hours. And the corn did not get soggy or mushy.
5 steps to making cooler corn
- Clean your cooler, making sure you wash and rinse it out well.
- Make sure you have a lid.
- Shuck the corn and place it in the cooler. You can line them up in a single or double row — depending on the size of your cooler.
- Boil some water — enough to completely cover the ears by an inch or more.
- Cover with the lid. Let sit at least 30-45 minutes or until the corn is cooked.
As an option, you can toss in a stick of butter and some salt with the corn.
Selecting corn
At Long Family Orchard, Farm and Cider Mill, you can buy corn without getting out of your car.
The family-owned farm in Commerce picks corn every morning. It's available beginning at noon for drive-up service. Corn is $4 for seven ears and $7 for what they call a long dozen, 13 ears.
At Block's Stand and Greenhouse in Romulus, at the corner of Middlebelt and Eureka roads, corn is a bargain at $2.99 for however many ears you can stuff in a bag. The bags, provided by Block's, are about the size of a plastic grocery bag and easily fit a dozen ears. And. you get a third bag free if you buy wo bags.
Ben Phillips, an MSU vegetable extension educator agrees that this year's crop is a good one.
"What is being picked right now is the best stuff, it's the cream of the crop," said Ben Phillips, MSU vegetable extension educator for east central Michigan. "It's a great crop to take advantage of.
When selecting corn Phillips has some timely advice for those who like to paw through piles of corn trying to find the perfect ear: Stop it.
"Don't rifle through the ears," Phillips said. "You don't have to peel back the husk. It's not a good sanitary thing to do, especially this year."
People are, Phillips said, looking for what he called "tip fill" making sure it's a full ear.
"You can feel that through the husk," he said. "If it's blocky, then you have a full ear and you don't have to peel the husk back."
Another kernel (sorry, I couldn't resist) of advice from Phillips is if you've never eaten raw corn, give it a shot.
"It's delicious and you might prefer it that way," he said.
Contact food writer Susan Selasky: 313-222-6872 or sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter.
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The Link LonkAugust 07, 2020 at 05:00PM
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Want the best Michigan sweet corn you've ever had? You'll need a cooler. - Detroit Free Press
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