Diminutive humans may believe large bags of Halloween candy, unlimited sugar cubes purloined from the sugar bowl and maple syrup swilled directly from the Log Cabin jug are a good idea.
At a young age, “just right” is just this side of aching salivary glands and feeling like your teeth will shrivel back into your gums like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East retreating under the house. Thankfully, most of us outgrow that stage. Those who do not are banished to the Deep South, land of sweet tea and pecan pie. Even there, residents agree that there is such a thing as “too sweet.” There can be too much frosting on a rich chocolate cake, for example. Absent-mindedly adding an extra spoonful of sugar to the first morning cup of coffee can ruin it completely. Slices of the afore-mentioned pie need to be closer to slivers than slabs, consumed judiciously. In general, a spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down, but there are limits to that remedy.
There are some things, however, that remain outside that rule-of-thumb. A Sun Gold tomato, for example, is a tiny orb of sweet perfection, magically combining the acidity natural to its species with enough natural sweetness to tempt us to pop them in our mouths one after another like those sugar cubes from our younger days. Similarly, corn varieties have gone from sweet to super-sweet to something out of this world.
Goughan’s Berry Farm, the source of sweet, succulent strawberries at the Presque Isle Farmers Market in early July, are now bringing autumn to the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot with a whole pickup load of corn each Saturday mornings. Joseph Zook persuades his horse to bring along a wagonload as well. Both farms produce ears that bulge with a milky sweetness unmatched by anything else. Customers who otherwise restrict their purchases to combinations of meat and vegetables to make a meal, walk away with multiple bags stuffed full of dark green, full bodied, darkly tasseled ears of corn. They don’t say so, but they may be making a meal from just corn. Good for them!
The season is short; the juice dripping down their chin will wash off, and the grins that result from a meal as sweet and tender as this will go a long way toward making you believe in “just sweet enough.”
This column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information, visit their website at https://sites.google.com/site /presqueislefarmersmarket/home.
