Farmers’ Market:
Sweet corn
To watch an excited child is to be a child yourself, at least on the inside … you quickly discover yourself tamping down little bubbles of happiness you didn’t even know you owned. For example, when you speak to a child who is anticipating the holiday season, you discover that his barely-contained excitement is irrepressible. Just imagining the upcoming annual event will get him perking like a simmering pot and it hasn’t even happened yet. The glee dancing in his eyes becomes a cheerful babbling brook made of words as it trips off his tongue. “There’s going to be presents! And my relatives come. We sing carols and “Rudolph”. The house gets all decorated and this year I get to help. There is going to be good things to eat and no one tells me not to spoil my dinner. No worries! Dinner is just everything I ever loved on the dining room table all at once. And there’s no school for two whole weeks. It’s gonna be awesome!”
Anticipation of an event always heightens the pleasure it offers, even if your “kid days” are behind you. At the Presque Isle Farmers Market on Saturday mornings in the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot, one of the annual events that sets our customers perking is the arrival of fresh sweet corn in August. This year, spring came a bit early to Goughan’s Berry Farm and the seeds in the ground burst out like they were ready to take the world by storm. Regular rain and warm sunny days encouraged the deep green leaves to spread wide between the rows and the stalks to stretch high overhead. The sun-powered miracle of photosynthesis turned water and carbon dioxide into sugar, packed into the swollen grains lined up in rows and rows on their cob. The ears are fat and juicy and yellow, straining like tightly packed sausages against the husk that is their casing.
Mark Goughan arrives at The Market in mid-August with the bed of his pickup loaded with just-picked corn; the sides of the truck are extended to try to contain enough to satisfy eager market visitors. Set the water to boil with a tiny bit of added sugar, strip them down, and toss them in. Or roast them on the grill still wrapped in their green prom gowns with the tassle crowns. It hardly matters. The best is yet to come … a little salt and a bit of rich yellow melting butter … an ear or two (maybe three?) piled on your plate. Anticipate the first big bite as it sends the juices running down your chin and an explosion of sweetness dances across your tongue and down your throat. Look forward to another bite and another and another.
Freshly picked sweet corn … it’s gonna be awesome!
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
