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Strategies for buttering up the kernel

Corn skewers lie down on the job.
Wikipedia commons
Corn skewers lie down on the job.

Two  corn cobs walk into a bar.  They notice a third, shady-looking cob trailing them. First cob turns to his friend and whispers ..."Don't look now but I think we're being followed by a stalker."

Sorry, but since the subject of this "Food for Thought" outing is corn how could I resist?

Turning to the kind of corn you can actually eat, check out the recipe for corn soup from Nancy Leson's blog in The Seattle Times. She suggests straining the pureed kernels through a chinois. I think a fine mesh strainer would also work well. The recipe is simplicity itself and looks to be really delicious.

The butter dilemma

In the radio episode (attached to this story), Nancy and I disagreed about the best method for buttering corn on the cob.

Nance likes to keep a special stick of butter just for rubbing the cob over. While I appreciate the sway-backed esthetic that method imparts to the butter, I've found that sliding the corn cob through a folded slice of buttered bread is the more elegant solution. Especially as you can then eat the bread.

Or at least I did when I was still buttering corn. These days I actually like it better just plain straight out of the water.

I tend to think simple is best when it comes to corn but if you have an unusual style with fresh corn, or even an innovative way to get the butter on let's hear about it in the comments department right below.

"Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn."
-- Bill Bernbach

Food for Thought” is a weekly KPLU feature covering the world of food as well as the thinking that goes into it. The feature is published here and airs on KPLU 88.5 every Wednesday during Morning Edition and All Things Considered. 

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.