How do you eat your corn on the cob?

[Mayhaw Man]

Jinmyo,

How about pudding or mashed potatoes? Yes or no?

Your list was not very complete. Take some time to give a full accounting of your digital dining paranoia.

Standing by awaiting more info

[crouching tyler]

My husband ( abbreviate it into some obtuse acronym if you prefer) uses a corn eating style that is perhaps, singular.

At first, it appears as if he is taking random bites all over the corn on the cob. But, then, it becomes apparent that until it becomes inevitable, none of the bites are next to each other. His goal is to take as many fresh, clean bites as possible - bites in which all teeth are hitting previously untouched kernels - so as many bites as possible can feel like the first bite. Obsessive? Maybe. Original ? Definitely.

[Aileen]

I've been observing others eating corn on the cob for a few years now, ever since someone noticed that I'm a rounder - always been one but didn't think about it until it was pointed out to me. From what I've seen, channelers are much more common.

As for what to eat it with, I can't imagine NOT using tons and tons of butter. I don't care how fresh it is (we used to pick it and cook it immediately when I was growing up), any excuse to drown something in butter and I'm there!

[Mooshmouse]

Well, I go left to right, but I, also, move up rather than down.  I think because I get stuff between my bottom teeth if I move down, but not if I go up.

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The OCD eater's dream topic.

Loads of butter. Stalk end in left hand, pointy end in right. Channeler, definitely channeler, from left to right. However, I turn the corn cob down towards me so that I'm biting up with my bottom teeth for a reason opposite to MT-Tarragon's: so that I don't get stuff caught between my upper teeth. There's a bit more of a space between my two upper middle teeth than between their lower counterparts, and I find the feeling of having food wedged between my lower teeth infinitely more annoying.

As an aside, sprinkling sugar on buttered corn is a very common practice in the Philippines.

[mizducky]

The only problem I have with eating COTC is competing with one of my cats for it.  Rocky, an ebony ticked oriental shorthair, absolutely LOVES corn on the cob and munches on one end while I munch on the other.  He always knows when we're having it and will do anything in his power to get to it.  I have some pics of us sharing an ear of corn...funny as hell.  His style is about chewing on the small end for a bit to soften then he goes straight for the kernals all around it.  He doesn't care about being systematic...he just goes for it.  If I try to pull it away, he sometimes growls at me.  Most of the time though he's purring all through his feast.

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Oooooh! Could you post a couple of those pictures? I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd love to see 'em. (Kitties and food--the ultimate ooh-and-aaah web photo combination! )

This topic is cracking me up too, as I too thought I was always being a bit of an obsessive freak in my corn eating. Corn freaks unite! (hmmm, somehow that doesn't sound quite right...)

Anyway ... another channeler here (whoever took the time to invent those terms, channeling vs. rounding--now that's definitely some OCD freakishness going on right there ). Picking off the first couple of rows is the toughest--I'd get my upper incisors in between two rows and scrape downward, nipping off a couple of rows' worth as cleanly as I could. Then I'd work the rows above that, nearly always taking two rows at a time, working back and forth (not like a typewriter but like an old-school dot-matrix printer, for those of you who remember the furious flying printhead zipping to and fro). I'd be very compulsive about biting off the kernels as cleanly as possible to leave no particle of the corny goodness behind. Oh, and I'd use just a *little butter*. Just enough to accent, not enough to overwhelm, and certainly not enough to drip on me or anything.

Damn, now I'm jonesing fiercely for some Jersey truck farm butter-and-sugar corn.

[Jinmyo]

Jinmyo,

How about pudding or mashed potatoes? Yes or no?

Your list was not very complete. Take some time to give a full accounting of your digital dining paranoia.

Standing by awaiting more info

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Brooks, dear, I was listing grains or things made from grains.

Pick up a pork chop by the bone with your hands.

But not grains.

(Of course there are exceptions such as onigiri or suppli.)

I just don't like messy foods.

[marlena spieler]

while usually i adore messy foods, the messier the better, when it comes to corn on the cob, the only thing i can bear messy about it is the butter, and then i'm not above licking all the way up my elbow if it drips that far, or my neighbours elbow if it gets flicked in that direction.

BUT the way I eat it is OBSESSIVE TOO! I do the typewriter method, left to right, and eat only ONE ROW AT A TIME, picked each kernal out completely with my pearly whites and then moving on to the next. I like the cob to look completely naked when i'm finished with it! and then i rub it around in the melted butter and salt for awhile, then suck all the buttery juices from it.

by the way, i make a good stock out of corn cobs, but of course, to reassure you, not the pre-sucked corn cobs. corn cob stock makes a delicious base for tortilla soup.

marlena

[Octaveman]

BUT the way I eat it is OBSESSIVE TOO! I do the typewriter method, left to right, and eat only ONE ROW AT A TIME, picked each kernal out completely with my pearly whites and then moving on to the next. I like the cob to look completely naked when i'm finished with it! and then i rub it around in the melted butter and salt for awhile, then suck all the buttery juices from it.

OMG

[mojoman]

Since the start of corn season, I cannot get over the way my GF eats corn (we met last fall so I did not previously witness this).

Most people eat using the typewriter method, biting off a couple of horizontal rows at a time, hitting carriage return, and repeating (so you only eat in one direction at a time.

Your can do a variation of this (serpentine) where you move horizontally but don't hit the carriage return.

Others do the around and around method, taking off circles.

She eats corn in a highly random fashion, starting in the middle and moving in any direction she feels.

What do you do?

Me? Typewriter

[Syrah]

I'm random. I had braces and have only just recently decided that eating corn on the cob is worth all the messy annoyingness. Of course, I do still only eat the organic corn I get in my deliveries. That is always worth it.

[jumanggy]

I remove all the kernels with a knife. I recognize I'm fussy. It's just that it's easy for the seed coats to get stuck between my teeth, which I hate. On the other hand, my teeth are perfect

[Simon_S]

Hmmm, I don't know what you'd call the way I do it. How about the "matrix" method. Starting at the left I eat a patch maybe 8 kernels down and 8 kernels across, continue across to right before hitting carriage return and repeating.

Random corn on the cob eating? I can't understand that at all!!!

Si

[BarbaraY]

Typewriter method because that's the way my grandfather taught me. I was doing the random thing and he told me that the other was better.

He was right.

[maher]

serpentine, but i love the spontaniety of the random approach. i say she is a free spirit and a rare one at that. consider yourself lucky!!

[FistFullaRoux]

I go around. Starting usually on the left side, I eat all the way around the circumference of the corn, then move to the next column (versus row).

I call it the lathe method, as it's similar to the mechanics of turning a table leg.

[Big Bunny]

I go around the ends to make "handles", then typewriter.

BB

[kpzachary]

I use the typwriter method. As far as what I eat it with may is a bit different. I like mine Mexican street food style. Seasoned with salt, cayanne pepper, lime juice and a beautiful smear of mayo. MMMMMM! I saw this in Oaxaca, where people were walking down the street with mayo all over their faces. It was comical at the time, but now I understand it.

A while back, I saw an old Iron Chef episode where corn was the ingredient. During the intro they explained that in Japan they turn the cob vertical, like it grows on the stalk, and eat it tip to tip. They believe this is the best way to get to the tip of the kernels which is where all the flavor is., I tried it, but went back to my typwriter style.

[miladyinsanity]

So nobody eats their corn one kernel at a time?

[srhcb]

I use the typewriter method backwards.

SB (left-handed )

[Carrot Top]

I take one bite from the center. Maybe another.

Then starting at the left edge, I nibble that round and round so that the left edge has been neatly demolished.

Then I do a bit of typewriter left to right. Then a bit of typewriter right to left on the other side. This is no mere arbitrary biting, I assure you. It is all part of a Plan.

Then all the other parts are devoured just as I please, with whatever part that looks most appealing being bitten off first.

I do not use those little corn holder things on the ends, those little plastic yellow skewer-forks that look like cute instruments of torture and doom. Though I do like to have several scattered about in the kitchen drawer, just because.

[srhcb]

I do not use those little corn holder things on the ends, those little plastic yellow skewer-forks that look like cute instruments of torture and doom. Though I do like to have several scattered about in the kitchen drawer, just because.

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I don't use them either, but I keep a little jar full of the ear-of-corn-shaped holders around because my Mother had them.

SB

[chile_peppa]

So nobody eats their corn one kernel at a time?

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Not quite, but I do eat just a few kernels from a single row at a time, across in typewriter fashion. I find fewer bits stick in my teeth that way, and the cob looks much neater, too. I get a little prissy sometimes.

Edited June 27, 2007 by chile_peppa (log)

[naguere]

With eight real teeth left, it is better for me to cut the kernels on to the plate.

It is lovely though to gnaw at the cob but it impacts my dentures something terrible

Such is the life of an Englishman .

[Kouign Aman]

As often as possible.

Random as to whether its a linear or roundabout approach for any two consecutive bites.

With butter.

Or with butter, mayo, parmesan cheese and hot sauce ala Tijuana street fair.

Or completely plain.

Roasted.

Boiled.

Steamed.

Corn is the thing I most want to plant next year.

[I_call_the_duck]

A little of both.

I start on the large side first, do one row across, eat all the way around the large end, then finish with the typewriter method.