Oh, you adorable Oregonians with your corn festivals, and your heaping mounds of corn at E.Z. Orchards, and your hand-bagged corn at the Saturday market, and God forbid, your Fred Meyer corn.
I fear you don’t really know what good corn tastes like. If you did, why would you keep coming to our door and offering us bags of it, lifting it to your chest as if it were Frankincense and myrrh, to see if these treasured kernels meet the approval of one perpetually hungry Iowan and his East Coast wife?
There are many areas where Oregon’s bounty kicks the butt of other states — see fungi, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, hazelnuts, and peaches — but corn is not one of them. Say what you will about Iowa’s monoculture of corn, they know how to do it right, and Iowa farmers produce the most sublime ears I have ever had.
I have scaled no similar Mattercorn in Oregon in my quest to replicate the Iowa corn experience. Until recently, I haven’t found any corn that is so good you can make an entire meal out of it. I’m talking plump, full kernels, tightly packed, slightly sweet, firm to the tooth (al dente if you will), laid out in deliriously cute, non-uniformly straight rows.
Corn you are happy to get all over your face.
But then my landlord came by with a bag of four ears. That’s what kind of neighborhood we live in. We keep sharing the good fortune of our land with each other.
Keith shows up in his plaid shirt carrying a bag of corn and hands it to me as if he is proffering some jewels fit for the queen. And he wants to know: Is this corn any good?
Well, it already is good because it’s his favorite corn and has been for many years. He’ll drive the whole way to Schlechter’s Farms to pick up enough for the micro-hood.
The verdict: Not Iowa good, but the best I’ve had in the West.
We made a meal out of it.
I got into it over New Jersey corn versus Iowa corn before a recent trip east. Same problem: they don’t know any better.
Did you know I hate corn? Apparently I just haven’t had good corn. . . but, in my humble opinion, it is a waste of delicious carbohydrates and a sorry excuse for a “vegetable”.
Not a vegetable! It’s a starch. Maybe you should have had some while you were in Wisconsin…?
oh I know it is not a vegetable. You are probably right about Wisconsin. . .
I have an idea of what you mean, because I still haven’t had corn to measure up to what was available in Roseburg.
Friend Sherry and I would go out to one of the local you picks, try not to nibble the juicy kernels in the field, and bring home our bounty for both a corn feast and the messy family business of cutting off the kernels and bagging them for freezing.
You’re absolutely right: Oregon corn is just so-so. Ditto on Oregon beef. My Kansan taste buds demand Kansas beef and Kansas (or Iowa) sweet corn. Thankfully said taste buds are kept satiated by Oregon’s bounty of berries, vegetables and salmon.
“I have scaled no similar Mattercorn in Oregon in my quest to replicate the Iowa corn experience.”
Really, Emily? Mattercorn? Really? You must’ve been thinking a lot about Iowa today because your writing is a bit corny. Buh dum chhhh
At least you aren’t writing about traditional Wisconsin dishes. Lord knows I’ve already injected enough cheesiness to this conversation.
Please hold your groans til the end. And don’t forget to tip your waitress…
Our Iowa visitors are here, so, yes, thinking a lot about Iowa. Also, I’ll take a good pun over a bad ear any day.
Amen, sistah! Indiana’s tourism slogan one year was, “There’s more than corn in Indiana.” One could argue that, but the corn cure was good. I remember the first time we had corn obtained from the farmer’s market here. Others were raving about how good it was and I’m thinking, “What? This chewy, tasteless cob?”
Ah well. Can’t have all things everywhere, and if you could, everyone would want to go there. =-)
We are about to eat the first corn from our garden tonight… and will probably have it every night for weeks until our 4 rows are depleted… That will burn us out on corn for a few months at least….What I think is incomparable is the wonderful tomatoes… which we are still waiting on…
At a “Corn Festival” in between Albany and Corvalis this weekend, Meridith and I had the pleasure of firing a “corn cannon” for the very first time. You’d think that after living 7 years in Iowa, we would have seen it all. But ya ain’t experienced all that corn has to offer until you’ve loaded this piece of piping musket-style, made sure the air pressure in the propane tank was right, and then let ‘er fly at two targets: a giant apple and a giant turkey painted on pieces of plywood and then set up in a field 150 feet away. Truly an eye- (and very nearly corn-) popping experience.
Mike, my stomach says: “NOOOOOOOOO!”
But I guess it’s just corn. Don’t tell me about any smashing of pumpkins in a few months or I just might cry.