Every July and August, Middle America celebrates the harvesting of sweet corn. There are corn festivals, road side corn stands, and surplus of fresh sweet corn at your farmers market. This is the time to grill corn on the cob.

What most people don’t understand is that outside metropolitan areas the corn being grown in those fields is actually feed corn, used to feed live stock, create whiskey, and turn into high fructose corn syrup. While driving through these fields reminds me of my hometown, I know that I can’t just pull over and pick some ears of corn from a random field and try to eat them. What I’m looking for is the Supersweet corn developed at the University of Illinois in the 1950’s. Supersweet variety is modified to create higher levels of sugars than regular feed corn.

The “sweet corn” you randomly find at your local grocery store isn’t the variety that tastes the best – it’s the variety that has the longest shelf life. Supermarket corn is usually deep yellow and is picked from god knows where, shipped in a box full of ice, and kept in a cooler for weeks. Who wants to eat flavorless corn where hundreds of hands have poked their finger nails into the kernels to see if it’s fresh. Here is a secret, unless noted it’s local, it’s not fresh. On the other hand, Supersweet corn is light yellow to white kernels throughout the cob – it’s not a uniform color but is melt in your mouth tasty.

I find that the road side stands are the best to pick up the fresh corn – this produce is usually picked hours before you buy it. It’s worth the drive to get your food from an honest working person to share their passion with you; you’ll pay for a dozen ears and notice while the farmer is putting the corn in the reused big box store plastic bag that he or she will put 13 ears into it. Better to give extra product than to short change the consumer, something that has been lost in most of today’s business. Of course if you can’t make it out to a road side seller – the farmers market is the next best option.

So corn should be simple enough to grill – just throw it on the grate and heat up right? Well, the answer is no. The way I grill the corn is for it to simmer in butter, salt and pepper using the husks to keep all the juices in. Who needs tin foil when nature gives a better option of keeping flavor in? Of course don’t be afraid to add parmesan, coriander, or any other spices to the corn before you cook it. Put all the flavor enhancers on first, then it’ll cook into the corn and you won’t have to worry about putting extra on after grilling. Soaking the corn is important, just as you soak wood chips or planks – you are preventing the husks to catch on fire. Adding butter also aids in this process because as it melts it’ll soak into the husks, keeping them from drying out. The below recipe is a fail safe method to grilling perfect corn on the cob, hell it can even make supermarket corn taste better.

The Setup

4 ears fresh corn with husk on

4 tablespoons butter (room temperature)

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Butcher string or extra corn husk made into strips

Cooking

1. Soak corn in lightly salted water ½ to 1 hour

2. Set up grill for medium hot direct grilling

3. Mix butter, salt and pepper together

4. Carefully peel corn husk back, do not remove husks but clean silk away.

5. Cut off ¼ inch tip of corn – this will make tying the husks back together easier

6. Smother each corn cob with 1 tablespoon of butter mixture

7. Bring husk back up each ear of corn and secure shut with butcher string. If you don’t have butcher string handy use excess corn husk to tie shut

8. Grill corn on open grill over medium heat, turning about 1/6 of a turn every two to 3 minutes. Once corn is fully rotated place grill top on for another minute.

9. Let cool 5+ minutes before removing husks

(Note: The freshness of your corn determines the cook time which varies from 10-25 minutes.)