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Boiled Corn
Choose short, thick ears of fresh corn; remove all the husks except the inner layer; strip that down in order to remove all the silk from the corn and to permit the removal of any defective grains, and then replace it, and tie at the upper end of each ear of corn. Have ready a large pot half full of boiling water, put in the corn, and boil steadily for about twenty minutes if the ears are large, or fifteen minutes if they are only of medium size; then take from the boiling water, remove the strings; serve hot at once. If it seems desirable to strip off the inner husk just before sending to the table, this must be done very quickly and the corn covered with a clean napkin or cloth to prevent the escape of heat. Serve plenty of butter, salt and pepper with the corn. Sometimes these latter are mixed, by heating them, together, and then served in a gravy-bowl. The fresher the corn the sweeter it is. It seems to lose its most delicate flavor after having been gathered for a few hours.
The method holds up, but the timing belongs to a different kind of corn. Everything else here is about heat retention and freshness.
- The timing is the one thing to changeFifteen to twenty minutes suited the open-pollinated sweet corn of the period, which was starchier by the time it reached the kitchen. Modern supersweet and sugar-enhanced hybrids need only about three to five minutes in boiling water; held at fifteen the kernels go flabby and the skins turn leathery.
- Why the old corn needed itPre-hybrid sweet corn converted sugar to starch within hours of picking, which is exactly what the closing line notes. The long boil was presumably aimed at kernels that had already begun to firm up on the way to market. Today's varieties hold their sugar for days under refrigeration, so the cooking is only about heating through.
- The inner huskLeaving one layer of husk in place is still worth doing. It shields the kernels from direct contact with rolling water and holds steam around the ear, and it makes the corn easier to keep hot at table.
- Do not salt the waterThe recipe omits it, and tradition holds that salt in the cooking water toughens the kernel skins. Either way, season at the table, as directed.
- The heated butter mixtureThe "gravy-bowl" service is melted butter with salt and pepper stirred in, poured or brushed over. Roughly 4 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper serves six ears and keeps better than a pat that slides off.
- Pot sizeA large pot half full means the water should return to the boil quickly once the ears go in and the corn should move freely. Cook in batches rather than crowding a stockpot.
- YieldOne to two ears per person as a side dish; two for a summer supper where the corn is the point.
The closing line about corn losing its flavor within hours of gathering is the standard nineteenth-century observation, and it was accurate: before the sugary-enhancer and shrunken-2 hybrids of the twentieth century, sweet corn's sugars converted to starch fast enough that market gardeners near cities had a real advantage over distant growers. The instruction to tie the inner husk back over the ear is an old kitchen-garden practice, said to keep the kernels plump and the flavor in.