Corn, Baby

This entry is a mini-mention, for corn and its uses are well known. Fresh baby ears are a mere blip on the corn chart, but different enough from larger forms to warrant attention on their own.

“Baby corn” refers to tiny ears picked just as the silk appears. Fresh, they taste as you might imagine: like the essence of mild corn with a green vegetable underpinning. (You eat the tender cob along with the minute kernels.) Those I’ve cooked averaged about a dozen ears to the pound in the husk, which yielded about ¼ pound trimmed “cornlets” 2 to 4 inches long and ½ inch in diameter. These infants may be field corn (the starchy kind used for dried grain products and animal feed), which can be sweet and juicy at a literally tender age. Or they may be sweet corn cultivars.