TIP: Corn Cobs

Recently, we went to a dinner party given by Fabe and Zippy Fox.  Zippy is a phenomenal cook: she's even been in the audience of an Iron Chef America episode. One among many delicious dishes with which she enticed our flagging summer appetites, was a fresh corn salad.  While we were talking about it, she mentioned something I vaguely remember my grandmother either talking about or doing, and that was scraping the corn cob with a spoon to get the corn "milk" after the sweet corn kernels were cut off.

Mr. T was intrigued, cooked some corn and asked me to cut the kernels off the cob.  I did that, and started to scrape the cobs with a spoon (the back of a knife also works well), and he said he would take care of the rest. He then proceeded to chomp all of the extra sweetness off the cobs, so we didn't really get to try corn milk.

I hear that some people make corn milk from the whole kernels, and maybe it's a personal preference whether to do this with raw or cooked corn.  Cut them off the cob, throw the whole mess in the food processor, then strain it so you get only the milk.  The leftover fiber and starch can be used in other recipes.

I suspect there may be some good nutrition hiding in those cobs.  We can eat them when they are very young.  If you think you haven't eaten one, think again -- back to the last Chinese takeout you consumed.  Chances are that baby corn was included somewhere in one of the dishes.  (Are there fields and fields of itty-bitty corn somewhere in China?)  There are also some interesting Indian recipes for baby corn, including quite a few curries.  Mmmm!  How about you folks in US corn-growing country?  Are there any baby corn recipes?

I also read about the "milk line".  When corn is new, the kernels are plump and full of moisture.  As corn stays in the field, the moisture ekes out slowly, the starch solidifies and kernels start to have dents in them.  Farmers can break the cobs and look for a milk line, or sign that the corn is dry enough to put in the silo.

To cut kernels off the corn, I like to break them in half, so there is a good flat base, and then cut the kernels off while the corn is sitting firmly on a cutting board.  Other people like to cut the tip off, grab the stalk end, and, pointing the tip into a bowl, start cutting toward the bowl.

We're going to try making corn cob soup stock by boiling the heck out of cobs after cutting the kernels off, and then using the stock for a cold potato soup with fresh corn kernels.  I'll let you know how it goes!  There's an article by Mark Bittman called "Don't Toss Out the Cobs".  (In case I have to remove the link, it's from The New York Times, August 23, 2000.)  Bittman is interested trying international flavors, but I just want to taste good old fashioned potato, milk, fresh corn -- and maybe even bacon -- just as they are.

Thanks, Zippy!  You can see, we're still talking about dinner!

MIDDLETON (WI): The National Mustard Museum

This morning, I heard a story on WNYC about The National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.  Just like Proust biting into the madeline, as I listened to the founder (Barry Levinson) talking about mustard, that story transported me via my ears . . . SMACK . . . right back to my childhood.  Please indulge me whilst I tell it: because of the circumstances, I eat more mustard than any human being should probably consume -- then we'll get back to mustard.

Yellow Mustard Seeds
(Wikimedia Commons, as are the others)

While I was in high school and part of college, I lived with my grandmother and grandfather in Chesapeake, Virginia.  My grandmother, Leila Bell Bradshaw, was a prodigious -- and I mean that with a capital "P" italicized and underscored -- Southern cook.  She could flash-fry a chicken for a light snack, and even if the person who ended up eating it already had one foot out the door, the smell alone would bring them right back in.  Let it be known that, to date, the chicken flying out of that iron frying pan was the best, crispiest, and juiciest fried chicken I have ever eaten. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner were marvels, causing the sturdy golden oak dining table to sing the groaning board song.  There were always fruit cakes along with seven pies and layer cakes, at least one huge turkey and one Smithfield ham, oyster stuffing in sheet pans, and sides galore in big old bowls, from collard greens to that special gelatin Grandma made only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, with grated carrots and pineapple (well, I liked it) -- and biscuits, biscuits, cornbread, biscuits!  She seemed to do this so effortlessly.  Sometimes, it seemed like the food just appeared out of nowhere, while she was puttering around and "a-talkin'" . . . and by God, she was a prodigious talker, too.

But, she couldn't cook everything.  From TV, she somehow got the notion that she should fix spaghetti now and then for supper.  After breaking up leftover hamburgers (and more about them below), she cooked them in ketchup and water until everything seemed red enough and thick enough, then spooned it over spaghetti noodles she had boiled until they became fat.  Well, sir . . . I ate it, albeit with a lot of salt, because it tasted, as they used to say about unsalted beans -- "mighty fresh."  She simply had no notion of spaghetti or any Italian food because she rarely ate outside her own home.

She couldn't cook hamburgers, either, but I'm not sure exactly why.  She would make the patties and then fry them slowly in grease until they were crunchy.  Yes . . . I did say crunchy.  They were not burnt, but they were very, very dark -- and crunchy -- especially around the edges.  By the time they were done, you could put two of them on a regular hamburger roll and still not cover it; any juice that might have been in them had long ago totally disappeared.  In my mind's eye now, I can picture soldiers lining up for them.  I can hear my grandmother saying, "These boys just love my hamburgers!" with the sergeant whispering to his men, "Take two each, and put them in your gas masks, men.  These are the finest charcoal filters in the world!"

My strategy for eating these crunchy hamburgers . . . and I didn't entirely dislike them . . . involved good old yaller mustard, specifically French's mustard, because that's all we had around.  I poured French's mustard on and then ate this yellow mustardy, crunchy thing enclosed in a soft, sweet hamburger bun.  Really, it could have been worse; it could have been a lot worse (see spaghetti, above).  What it did do, was give me a taste for mustard.  I started putting lots more mustard on hot dogs, too, with islands of relish.  People since then, upon seeing my hot dog preparation, would sometimes gently ask if the top came off the mustard jar.  Nope, it didn't . . . I just like 'em that way!

When I went to Giessen, Germany in my early teens, it was a whole different world of -- well, just about everything.  I discovered real bread and butter, and also, senf -- German yellow mustard.  The first time I saw it, my aunties were making a welcoming table with plates of nibbles, and used tubes of mustard and ketchup, to decorate them.  Tubes?  Like toothpaste?  Yep, just like toothpaste.  I was really puzzled and intrigued.  It was incredibly dense, and a little more to the brown side than the yellow side.  I liked it, even though it didn't taste quite like "real" mustard to me.   At a sidewalk eatery, I tried a . . . I can't remember exactly what it was called, but let's just call it a hot dog.  It came on a little paper tray, with a small white round roll (brotchen) and a significant senf dab -- less dense, but still browner than what I was used to eating.  The ritual itself was awkward, though: dip wurstchen in senf and bite, then take a bite of brotchen.  It was difficult to do, even with two hands free, and the hot dog was so much longer than the roll, that to me it just didn't make much senf (sorry).  At a much later date, I happened to see an engraving showing Giesseners enjoying the very same street food in the 15th century, I think.  Despite the awkwardness, it tasted good.  There just wasn't enough senf, and I was too chicken to ask for more.  (I think it has now been supplanted by the curry wurst, which New Yorkers can try at Hallo Berlin  locations.)

By now, I've tasted and fallen in and out of love with many different mustards.  The person who invented honey mustard did the world a great service.  One I regret not having been able to taste was mustard flavored with artichoke.  Why do we always remember the one that got away?  I remember yelling at my dear Mr. T during one Thanksgiving cooking marathon, that I specifically had to have Coleman's Mustard powder for a particular recipe because it just wouldn't taste right if I made it with leftover Chinese mustard packets (and now I don't even remember which recipe it was).  He kindly did go out to get it.  My current favorite is Kosciusco Mustard, a Polish variety in a "spoonable barrel" -- mmmm -- made by Plochman's.  I love their website, too.  It even tells how you can dye fabric with mustard!  These folks seem to really LOVE mustard.

According to Chowhound, I find I'm not alone (sob!), and that most mustard aficiandos have created their own mustard museum, right in the fridge.  I have a whole-grain mustard made with whisky, that I believe can only be bought at the distillery in Scotland, where, indeed, we acquired it.

Back to Barry and Patty Levinson's National Mustard Museum.  There must be some serendipity here, because yesterday, after hearing about if for the first time on the radio, I saw a Japanese guy sitting outside the laundry wearing their "Poupon U" T-shirt.  I asked him if he had been to the Mustard Museum, and he had!  I'm a little surprised, that there's no History of Mustard, or Mustard Fun Facts on their website, but then, they seem to be in a transitional phase at the moment.  Yesterday, I stumbled across a really wonderful slideshow by them on Flikr, though, called The Art of Mustard (look to the right column and you'll see it).  They must be trying to re-arrange it at the moment, but it was really interesting to see the different labels and containers.  Why don't we have great mustard containers?  It whets the appetite for more!

I'm going to end this entry, but shortly, I'll have to do an entry about nothing but mustard (and even include that bane of my childhood -- Musterole). 

According to the National Mustard Museum's website, the first Saturday in August -- August 7th this year -- is National Mustard Day.  Get ready, it's coming sooner than you think!