Sweet corn frozen on the cob and marketed
six months to a year after it is harvested may seem
| fresher and sweeter than sweet corn bought at
I the market with husks still fresh. In fact, the
j “roasting ears” in winter may actually be fresher
and more nearly like corn just gathered in the
field. Freezing, according to studies in the West
j Coast laboratories of the Department of Agriculture,
| stops most of the changes that normally take
! place so rapidly in sweet corn after it is gathered.
It is a commonplace that city dwellers who buy
from city markets can never really enjoy the very
highest quality of corn-on-the-cob because the
sugars in corn begin changing to starches as soon
as the corn is removed from the stalk. The ideal
way to serve sweet corn is to gather it, husk it,
boil it, and eat it. all within a half hour. Strictly
fresh corn is too much for a city dweller to hope
[ for, unless he grows his own corn in his own yard.
Getting corn from the fields to the wholesale and
then to the retail markets takes a day or longer.
In freezing corn on the cob, H. C. Diehl and
J. A. Berry, in their experiments for the Depart
ment, worked the material rapidly, and usually
gathered, sorted, graded, husked, scalded, and cooled
the corn for freezing within four hours. The scald
ing. they think practically stopped the chemical
changes that take place in corn, and the subsequent
freezing kept them stopped, so that the frozen
product served six months after it was gathered
was roughly the equivalent of corn served within
four hours after picking.
Old Traditions Tumble.
