sweet corn subservience and summertime steadfastness

unsnackable vol. 80

I am old enough to know that age does not magically bestow wisdom, but it (hopefully) allows for the self-awareness necessary to understand your motivations for both growth and stagnation. Maybe that is why it has taken me this long to realize that nothing stirs my true and devoted motivation like committing to a bit. I’m my own court jester, rehearsing amusements until they thrill.

In the twilight of summer, nothing thrills me more than the ambrosial parade of in-season corn. My midwestern roots run deep, explaining my weeks-long craving. What surprised me was how end-of-summer memes (in this house, we respect the solstice) triggered something closer to 'corn psychosis' than a usual craving. I woke up and saw this in the mirror.

c._.hii

A post shared by @c._.hii

And in service to the bit, I gave in and let the corn guide me. I was simply a vessel for the corn’s bidding, and my reward for subservience was a hall-of-fame run of late summer cooking. After about two weeks, the fever broke, and I regained my sense of self outside of the corn. Here’s what I made during that time:

Spicy Sweet Corn Mac made with sweet corn milk (corn blended into half-and-half, then strained), fresh kernels poached in the pasta as it cooked, and lots of extra pepper flakes.

Corn Butter (Juiced corn, reduced until spreadable and starchy and sweet)

Black Pepper and Sweet Corn Double-Yolk Aioli (made by emulsifying the corn butter into egg yolks and neutral oil)

Brown Butter Sweet Corn Blondies with a Pistachio Streusel ( a Smitten Kitchen riff, streusel made with Pistakio)

Cheddar Bay Sweet Corn Buttermilk Biscuits finished with Parsley Butter ( I felt like a failure because I didn’t laminate the corn butter into these biscuits, but they turned out perfect nonetheless)

Corn stock and Corn Simple (saved my cobs in the freezer and let a naked stock simmer on the stove for a few hours, reserved some to make a corn simple syrup, then added some aromatics and seasoned the remainder)

Sweet Corn Summer Shrimp Rolls made with the Black Pepper Sweet Corn Double-Yolk Aioli and an assemblage of orphaned ingredients from my fridge, freezer, and pantry (frozen black tiger shrimp poached in corn stock, the heel of a bulb of fennel, red onion that had seen better days, dill that I had to shock in ice, buns that had mostly dried out slathered in parsley butter and toasted. But it was delicious in a way that “created a core memory”)

Shaken Summertime Sweet Corn Raspberry Lemonade (I have never met a raspberry with more structural integrity than the ones I tried to shake into this Deli Container lemonade alongside the corn simple, I should have used my muddler. Made me homesick for the Best State Fair)

B.E.C.C.C ( Beef Bacon, Egg, Cheddar, Corn Butter, Calabrian Chili on Shokupan. I love a crusty bread, but sometimes I want my sandwich to be SOFT)

Sweet Corn, Sungold and Za’atar Focaccia ( Lowkey some of best focaccia I’ve ever made?)

Brown Butter Sweet Corn Rice Pudding with Blackberry Tarragon Grapefruit Zest Confiture ( A riff on Bronwen’s recipe, replacing the malted milk powder with butter-toasted milk powder, and the last of my batch of corn butter, confiture made using Christine Ferber’s technique after Natasha raved about it. Love to be inspired by Natasha and Bronwen as they are two of my favorite people!!!)

Sweet Corn Cheese Curd Fairground BLT (Despite the inclusion of freshly fried beer-battered garlic and herb cheese curds, beef bacon, heirloom tomatoes, butter lettuce, and Shokupan Texas toast, the star of this sandwich was absolutely the Black Pepper and Sweet Corn Double-Yolk Aioli)

I wasn’t kidding when I said I was simply a vessel for the corn’s bidding—this all happened in less than two weeks. And there is still more corn in my fridge at this moment. Why not stay on theme and offer a full cob of corn-related snacks I wish I could try with these unsnackables.

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the unsnackables

sweet

Печенье Хлебодар кукурузное (Ukraine)

There is a certain style of snacks that I associate with being young and tagging along with my parents as they dropped in on someone who rarely had kids around. The type of snack fished from the back of a pantry as an act of accommodation and love, despite a lack of understanding of what kids like. I don’t know if I even remember the names of the people who would give me snacks like these corn and butter cookies, but I do know that their kindness shaped me.

savory

MELLOW ACHAR CORN POPS (Pakistan)

Learning about these Achar-flavored corn puffs created a void in my life that I’m not sure how to fill. I must learn to cope with this emptiness forever because I would need both a plane ticket AND a time machine to try these.

thirsty

芽室　コーンサイダー (Japan)

While the egg sandwiches, honey butter chips, and konbini chicken filets garner a lot of attention when people talk about Japanese snacks, the real showstoppers reveal themselves when you start to drill into hyper-seasonality and hyper-locality. To address waning demand for the services of small bottling/canning plants, breweries, and wineries, many towns sell local soda flavors as omiyage, or souvenirs. Some have unique flavors, but others just mimic the sprite-adjacent flavor of Mitsuya Cider. I once bought two seemingly different, very heavy bottles from a small shop, leaving the Site of Reversible Destiny, and didn’t realize they were the same flavor until returning to our hotel hours later. This cider is meant to highlight the corn of Memuro in Hokkaido, a prefecture I love visiting because it feels like the American Midwest.

boozy

COZALINDA EL CAMINO DEL MAÍZ CHICHA FRUTILLADA (Brazil)

This isn’t the first variant of Peruvian Chicha that has earned a place in this newsletter, but this corn beer, inspired by the Frutilladas of Cusco that are traditionally made with chicha de jora and strawberries, still excites me because it takes the traditional structure of a fermented corn beverage and incorporates new techniques and flavors of guava, fennel, and anise.

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I’m still figuring this out, but hopefully, you enjoyed v.80 of unsnackable.

If you didn’t please don’t tell me, tell your friends to subscribe because they hopefully have better taste than you.

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