At the heart of every family tradition is a meaningful, memorable experience.
Yesterday was CORN DAY (an unofficial name that I officially gave yesterday). Jordan took some weeds to the back of our property and decided to swing by the sweet corn patch to check progress. When he pulled back up to the house Saturday, he urged me with excitement to come outside. We had sweet corn ready!
Sweet corn, especially our sweet corn, is my favorite summer food, competitively my favorite food of all time. Just mature enough to eat, boiled, covered in salted butter with pepper and it’s game on. We replanted our normal sweet corn patch twice this spring (because of the soil being too wet and cold) and finally got two decent sized patches planted in late June. It started a little late and now we are here.
500+ ears of sweet corn + 8 hours of picking, shucking, cleaning, cutting, mixing, cooking and bagging + loads of standing later and we have 100+ bags of corn for the year.
When you read our family recipe, it says –
- Cut corn off the cob
- Mix 4qt corn, 1 qt water, 4 tsp salt & 1 cup sugar
- Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes
- Cool and bag
What the recipe forgot to mention was picking, shucking, de-silking, cleaning and cutting the corn off the cob. Be sure to add that into your schedule before starting (and pick your corn before 8am in July/August). Plan to make multiple batches while freezing corn so you have corn to eat all winter long. I promise, you’ll want quite a few bags of corn because it is just THAT good.
Here’s another great family recipe from my granny –
- 8 cups sweet corn – cut off cob
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 stick of oleo (margarine or butter)
- 3 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup water
- Mix and cook for 13 minutes.
- Cool and bag (and freeze)
We were exhausted by the end of the day, that is no lie. But not only did we get to spend time together as a family, R & R, intrigued with what we were doing, played a vital role in each step of the corn freezing process. Yesterday, they watched, helped and learned. They also saw their parents and grandparents working hard to achieve a goal. This winter, I know R & R will thoroughly enjoy sweet corn and we can gently remind them of “corn day.” And instead of remembering how tired we all were that day, I have faith that they will remember a day full of adventure, family time and fun.
But really y’all – this was my first intense Epperson corn day and it was long and hard BUT so gratifying! And we have so, so much sweet corn. My weekly meals for the foreseeable future will be CORN ON THE COB + MEAT (thank you to all you pork, beef and chicken farmers!)