Fresh sweet corn. Butter. Salt. Iowa born and raised. Summers at the lake in upstate New York. Corn is in my blood.

I love corn on the cob! What a sign of summer! As young girls, my twin sister and I used to make observations about a person’s style of eating an ear of corn, sitting around the table with family, extended family, relations and friends. This was done with sometimes a barely contained hilarity, as oft-times reserved folk were witnessed with bits of kernels or butter slipping down their chins, or teeth bared for the next bite, signs of gusto which delighted us no end. Did they take bites from left to right, like an old fashioned typewriter? Or right to left? Or, was their pattern circling round and round the ear, stripping it effectively from one end to another? Or perhaps (though rarely in our study) bites were taken haphazardly, here and there along the ear of corn…