Colombian Grilled Corn with Butter and Cheese

Sometimes the idea of a dish surpasses its execution, for example, the grilled corn served on the cobblestone streets of one of the most perfectly preserved colonial cities in South America: Cartagena (the same Cartagena pictured in the original Romancing the Stone). The corn came the way I normally like it—husk off and charred over charcoal on a portable brazier, but the ears were starchy and dry and the “butter” turned out to be margarine of dubious freshness. Here’s how Colombian-