The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall
J. Wilson started his 40 days of Lenten beer fasting with meditation, prayer, and a physical checkup. Wife and I started our 40 days of sweet corn with high-fives and a pot of boiling water.
Wilson writes of making his journey for spiritual exploration, to walk in the steps of 17th century monks and better understand their passion for beer – dark, malty doppelbock – a passion he shares. Wife and I did daily fresh corn as a lark – strictly for fun. Wilson lost weight and dealt with stress. Wife and I were ready to quit the minute things got stale. Her 40 different recipes for 40 consecutive days (later amended to 50) was a blueprint we’d follow only as long as we continued to be happy and remain plump.
As described in an earlier column, all I had to do was plant a combination of long and short season, stagger dates, tend the crop and spread the harvest. Hers was to make it a treat in a different way every day.
She kept to her daily recipe schedule for two weeks. Chowder was on the menu for day 14; chowder made with a base of the rich stock from a dozen cobs. It was so good we decided to do it again, using the chowder to poach a few bite-size pieces of halibut. That led to another chowder variation on day 25. In between were corn fritters with maple syrup; incredibly good corn and cheddar popovers; bell peppers stuffed with black beans, corn and cheese; corn and pasta salad; a corn and bacon quiche; scalloped corn; corn in pancakes; waffles and breakfast burritos; and there were two Chinese stir-fry recipes that called for corn.
A bonus was smut, which deformed three ears. This mushroom, generally considered undesirable in our part of the country, is known elsewhere as a delicacy called huitlacoche, or Mexican truffles. We first learned it was edible when we saw it sold by the kilo at an outdoor food market in Vera Cruz. Our tour guide said it was grown intentionally by infecting young ears with spore. He described huitlacoche as delicious if picked at the right stage (it gets bitter if it’s too old). His favorite way has it as the main ingredient in traditional quesadillas, and he gave my wife the recipe. While I’ve found smut since, it was too old. This year I spotted it early and picked it while prime. Wife and I agree – we’ve never had quesadillas so elegant.
Some of the dishes were tried and failed. We butchered a lamb last fall, and had eggplant galore, so made moussaka with a layer of corn. While it was tasty, corn was lost in the béchamel and garlic. Corn pizza in the Green Egg is interesting – once. The kabobs – alternate pieces of corn on the cob, sirloin, bell pepper and sweet onions – was not what I hoped for as it didn’t all get done at the same time.
One of the more pleasant surprises was a runza made by filling Rhoades frozen dinner rolls with a ground pork mixture that included corn, cheese, and a bit of shredded cabbage, then baking. Another was the broth made with cobs from which the raw kernels had been cut. I’d expected the stock to taste cobby, but it does not. We canned a few pints to use this winter.
A soufflé took us through day 30 (Aug. 18), with only 10 to go for the original goal and 20 if we’re to make it to 50 consecutive days of corn. We’ve dined well, the scales say I’ve dropped three pounds but I don’t believe it, and there are new recipes yet untried. A problem is that the last planting looks closer to maturity than I’d like, and I’m not sure we’ll still have fresh ears by early September.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.