June 3, 2014

"They do live up to the hype. Get the corn, don't argue. Even when you're on a date."

"They give toothpicks to help with the stuck corn. Very helpful because that would have bothered me the rest of the evening."

Untitled

We just got back from a road trip that took us to New York City, where seemingly the most ordinary thing is a thing. I was amused by the corn-on-the-cob chomping on the sidewalks of NoLita. We're back home now — in the Midwest, where festivals premised on corn-on-the-cob are a summer tradition.

The quote in this post's title comes from a Yelp! review of the restaurant in my photograph, and I see there is a Yelp! review for the Sun Prairie (Wisconsin) Sweet Corn Festival:
Once upon a time in a land not so far away there was my beloved Sweet Corn Festival. I'd go there with my family and for a couple of bucks receive a cardboard tote filled with 12 steamin' hot ears of the finest sweet corn. We'd then take it to the shucking tables, and then onto the buttering station where the pretty young girls made friendly conversation as they rolled the awesome deliciousness that is your corn in sweet cream butter. After that we'd take those ears of corn to the salting tree and salt em' up. Finally sitting in the grass, in the shade of a great oak tree we ate our corn with much glee and chased it down with ice cold sodas. It was like a little slice of heaven right here in the Midwest. 

But not anymore my friends. It's like they say, all good things must come to an end, or in this case become so over commercialized that you want to rip your own head off.

What was once a simple festival full of corn, and other goodies to eat, has now become an over-commercialized, crowded, loud, obnoxious and EXPENSIVE event designed to suck your wallet dry and destroy your soul. 

It's five dollars just  to park in a grassy field! Then there are the carnival rides, vendor booths, and people everywhere trying to sell you shit that is completely unrelated to the glorious corn. 

Even the corn itself has gone up in price so much that you cringe. 6 DOLLARS A TOTE for ten ears of corn. You read it right, 6 fucking dollars...
Oh, now, now. That's 6 fucking dollars for 10 ears of corn and all the sweet cream butter pretty young girls can slather on. If it's still done the way it was done 30 years ago, the one time I went to the festival, it's entertaining to watch the girls rub the butter on with their plastic-gloved hands.
Fear not, the corn is still as good as it ever was, but you get the honor of paying more for less, and then you get to eat it while standing or sitting in a packed crowd of other disappointed Midwesterners who themselves are still trying to cling to the awesome memories of yesteryear. 

I can't believe I'm even saying this, but by the time we got through the midway, the people trying to sell you shit, the screaming kids, and hordes and hordes of hot, sweaty, disenchanted Midwesterners, the corn just wasn't worth it and I was hurrying back to my car.
Pining for the Golden Age of corn on the cob, bitching about crowds in the Midwest... why would you go to a corn festival if you didn't want a crowd experience? Grill or boil your corn at home if all you want is the corn.

But I wonder... what is the sought-after corn experience that leads to festivals and fetishizing? Corn seems to mean something to people, to stir some deep longing. I can't imagine standing on the sidewalk eating corn on the cob while random strangers walk by. At the Midwestern corn festival, you've got your public corn-eating event surrounded by human others who have all come to eat corn in public. That's weird in its own way. I would be all: Why are we all here, eating corn together in a corn-eating event? In NYC, the corn-eaters took their corn-pleasure in the midst of un-corn-related passersby who, as they progressed to their next destination, took vague note of the fact that on this 20-foot sector of sidewalk everybody is eating corn.

34 comments:

bleh said...

It's the smell. It reminds people of summer evening BBQs with family, friends and neighbors. The smell of corn is a very particular smell, it's far more evocative in my opinion that hamburger or sausage or whatever else traditionally gets cooked on a grill.

Curious George said...

I think a blog post that has "fucking", "pretty young girls" "slather", rub" and "sweet cream" is going to disappoint some googlers as well as a pedophile sting operation.

Ann Althouse said...

@Curious George Well, I never went back to the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn Festival. It seemed really inappropriate to me.

Ann Althouse said...

"It's the smell…."

The movie theater business has a lot to do with the smell of corn (and butter).

Quaestor said...

In NYC food is fad, food is fashion. In a matter of weeks, months at best the hipsters will have forgotten corn-on-the-cob and will flock like sheep to the next fashionable trough.

In the real America food is tradition.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It was just last Saturday that we were at a brewpub and I got some of a Buffalo chicken wing stuck between two molars.

(I know, I know . . . chicken wings. But it's okay, I was eating them . . . ironically.)

So I'm all like, "Fuck!, that was my very last fucking bite and now I've got a huge fucking chunk of bird anatomy jammed into my fucking jaw!"

So my wife is all like, "Here, I always carry dental floss." And she hands me this little foil packet. You tear it in half and you've got a length of dental floss with two foil tabs connected to each end.

So, floss away I did!

Right there at the table, too!

Couth. Some guys have it and some guys have even more of it.

madAsHell said...

and all the sweet cream butter pretty young girls can slather on.

But wouldn't it taste better on the corn??

Bob said...

(paraphrase)

"Goodbye, Nola; I hope that corn-eatin' bastard can make you happy this time."

The Crack Emcee said...

"That's weird in its own way. I would be all: Why are we all here, eating corn together in a corn-eating event?"

Is it too late to suggest white people are corny?

*ducks*

Robert Cook said...

I live in NYC and I've never heard of there being a corn on the cob "thing," here.

LCB said...

Southern Ohio Silver Queen Sweet Corn in August...best corn on the cob in dah world...

Ann Althouse said...

"I live in NYC and I've never heard of there being a corn on the cob "thing," here."

Are you a hipster?

Unknown said...

In the Grimm household there's an old family saying (First stated by Hezekia Grimm in 1864) that corn is the perfect delivery vessel for butter and salt.
Hezekia never had many book smarts, but he was a scholar among men where it came to foodstuffs. May he rest in peace.

Johanna Lapp said...

In Philadelphia, good corn at an affordable price has become a once-a-year treat. A third of each year's New Jersey crop is diverted to ethanol. Another third is absorbed by processed food manufacturers, fron Quaker Grits to ShopRite Corn Oil to Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix. In a drought year, like three of the last four, there is no third third.

Supermarkets offer trucked-in loss-leader corn before Memorial Day at 19 cents an ear, limit 12 ears. Before and after, it's a buck an ear.

traditionalguy said...

The sweet cream butter and salt is what tastes so good. And that alone disqualifies corn on the cob for school lunches meeting White House standards.

Antiantifa said...

Oh man! First I missed Taylor Swift shopping in my neighborhood, not once but twice in the same weekend, and now I miss Althouse and Meade. I have to get outside more often.

Irene said...

Maybe the hipsters love corn-on-the cob because NYC is a food desert, after all.

SteveBrooklineMA said...

"Why are we all here, eating corn together in a corn-eating event?" Drive 5 minutes out of town. You are living in a sea of corn. Idaho has potato festivals, Florida has oranges, Michigan has cherries, etc. The Midwest has corn.

We got the best deal.

wildswan said...

Next, cotton candy and a Ferris wheel.

David said...

Robert Cook said...
I live in NYC and I've never heard of there being a corn on the cob "thing," here.


The beauty of NY. So many things you can't keep up.

David said...

We leave for Wisconsin tomorrow. Yaay! Arriving Friday. I am not expecting corn.

In fact we have had some decent corn in SC in the last month. It's probably from Florida. But come August, there's this little roadside stand near our house . . . .

Robert Cook said...

"Are you a hipster?"

Hey, I'm "hip," but no hipster!

David said...

Steve Brookline sez: "Drive 5 minutes out of town. You are living in a sea of corn."

All in good time Steve, but it's way too early now. Elephant's eyes, and all that stuff.

David said...

Quaestor said...
In NYC food is fad, food is fashion. In a matter of weeks, months at best the hipsters will have forgotten corn-on-the-cob and will flock like sheep to the next fashionable trough.

In the real America food is tradition.


In NY the next trough is a tradition. More evidence of superiority in their own eyes. It does have its charm.

Ron said...

I still love the Manchester Chicken Broil. Half a chicken, cole slaw (secret town recipe!), radishes(!), potato chips and a drink.... plus a cheezy band or barbershop quartet. One year I ran into a group of Japanese tourists there who were on a 'Rock and Roll Tour' of America, (which it said on the side of their bus) and they had just come up from Graceland to the Chicken Broil! They asked me 'Where's the Rock and Roll?' Which had me asking why they thought that would be at this event! They showed me their Japanese guide book of America...and there was a picture of the CB! Oddness....

Quaestor said...

In the Grimm household there's an old family saying (First stated by Hezekia Grimm in 1864) that corn is the perfect delivery vessel for butter and salt.

Along those lines an ancestor of Quaestor once said of the french fry, or chips in his lingo, "Yon chips exist because it's rude to suck the ketchup straight from the bottle."

Wilbur said...

I grew up in Danville, a small east central Illinois city surrounded by farms raising beans (that's soybeans for some of you) and corn (field, sweet and pop).

My mother loved sweet corn, and I learned to appreciate it like she did: very lightly cooked, and then served chilled. It magnificently brings out the flavor that way. I can eat it raw, no problem.

There are few culinary things sadder than sweet corn cooked until it's soft and mushy on the cob. I would never consider ordering it in a restaurant.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hey, I'm "hip," but no hipster!"

You have to consider that it's possible that the point at which you hear about it is the point at which it's not a thing.

Ann Althouse said...

"Steve Brookline sez: 'Drive 5 minutes out of town. You are living in a sea of corn.' All in good time Steve, but it's way too early now. Elephant's eyes, and all that stuff."

A puddle of corn.

We're living in an ocean of air, but we don't have an Air Festival.

Ron said...

Of course the French won't touch the stuff...they consider it animal feed!

Anonymous said...

We're living in an ocean of air, but we don't have an Air Festival.

But we do. Door County Plein Air Festival, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, and Hudson Hot Air Affair to name a couple.

Quaestor said...

You have to consider that it's possible that the point at which you hear about it is the point at which it's not a thing.

How do things spread from hipster to hipster if not by hearing or reading? Sneezing?

Unknown said...

Hey! I prosecuted that trademark application!

Robert Cook said...

"Of course the French won't touch the stuff...they consider it animal feed!"

Not that long ago in this country the upper crust wouldn't dream of touching lobster...it was considered trash food for poor people.