I was fiddling with what I thought would become a very interesting recipe last week when I made a discovery: corn is like hamburger. We all know that no matter what you do to hamburger, it remains hamburger. Same thing with corn, it turns out.
This is not a bad thing. The best way to eat corn is fresh, hot, and straight off the cob. No butter, no salt, nothing. You can swirl it in a stick of butter, nothing wrong with that, and you think you've got buttered corn. In fact, what you have is corned butter. It's the butter that changes, in the relationship.
So why, if corn is so perfect all by itself, would someone try to modify it? Good question. It must have something to do with the human brain. Every human brain has a superiority complex. The song from "Annie Get Your Gun": "Anything you can do, I can do better." Potato chip manufacturers: "New! Improved!" boast the bags of their latest flavored chips, when they understand in their heart of hearts that there is no improving on the original product, a thin slice of plain potato fried in hot oil.
Yet it's because of the brain's superiority complex that potato chip people make insane profits off the flavored chips. It's called demographics: a "demographic group" is people banding together to insist that their choice is superior to all others. Once Lay's discovered there was a "Barbecue Flavored" superiority out there, the age of potato chip innocence was over. It's so easy for Americans to believe that they are No. 1. Before the season starts, football fans on 100 college campuses will all be brandishing index fingers, insisting, "We're No. 1!" They will still be doing that in November, when their team is 3 and 5.
I am guilty. I thought I could create America's No. 1 recipe for Southwestern Corn Salad. The secret would be freshness, and subtlety. I chopped half a large onion and diced three bell peppers: green, red and yellow. These I placed in a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet, over low heat. The idea was to let the ingredients cook very slowly, so they would soften and weep out their natural flavors without any intrusion of the browning effect. Surgical, eh?
After 20 minutes, I added one large zucchini, diced, and four diced tomatillos, for that distinctive tomatillo flavor. I added some salt and fresh-ground pepper. I shucked four ears of corn and cut the kernels off the cobs, and scraped the cobs, to collect the flavorful pips and a bit of pulp. After 20 minutes, I added these to the skillet and let the completed mixture gently simmer another 20 minutes.
When it was finished, I spooned up a bite and thought I would be blasted by primal goodness. It was not bad, by any means, but I had had a vision of guests, tasting this, to burst spontaneously into "America, the Beautiful," and I knew that was not going to happen, and I was disappointed. It tasted like corn.
Of course I will make Southwestern Corn Salad again. I will go to Trader Joe's for bags of frozen white corn and mixed peppers, already chopped. I will sauté the peppers and onion over medium heat, toss in the zucchini and eight (this time) diced tomatillos, and finally the corn. It will be done in 20 minutes, and it will be colorful, and good. It will taste like corn. Can't go wrong.
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