I Don't Want No Frankencorn

Today I went to the farm to buy the corn I've been waiting three weeks for. It was there. I bought it and took it home.

I ate the first ear raw. I boiled the rest and ate them. It was good. There's no way on Earth it could have been any fresher. It was better than what is in the store. It wasn't what I was looking for though. It was 'synergistic' corn.

"Sweet as sugar," my father used to say when I was a kid. Even as a kid, I knew bullshit when I heard it. If I want sugar, I'll get the goddam sugar bowl. It is corn that I want, not sugar. I put salted butter on this stuff, and then added salt, and I still couldn't cut the sweetness.

One online writer wrote, “People have gotten so used to sugary-sweet corn they think that's how it's SUPPOSED to taste. It's been an awful long time since I've had corn worth the butter, salt and pepper, stuff that actually required a bit of chewing. The corn of my childhood was not too many generations away from plain field corn - in fact, some of it was field corn, and had to be picked green to eat like that.”

So, I started reading. The problem is, hybridization. It never ends. Every year they fool with the seeds. To make them 'better.' So they can make more money. Cross-pollination has done its work, too. That's why it doesn't taste like it used to.

Reading, I found I wasn't the only one who noticed something had changed. One online forum respondent said, “I think for the most part, unless you seek out heirloom varieties of sweet corn, that all you find in the markets any more are hybrids that have been bred for long shelf life and shipability.“

Another writer, reviewing a source of heirloom seeds, said, “Oh--and check out the heirloom corn that they have gone to the trouble to test for GMOs because, as the catalog says, "It is getting to the point where most heirloom corn varieties test positive for GMOs; even growers in remote areas are having problems with Monsanto's GMO frankencorn."

As far as I can tell, no one in the state offers heirloom corn for sale, although it may be growing in some private gardens. My last hope is field corn. I know I can find that. I may have to boil it longer.

I never imagined even our produce had gone to hell. I had heard of frankencorn. I had read it had decimated native Mexican corn. I didn't realize it had gotten into my kitchen, though. Our food has been stolen, and destroyed, and replaced with something allowing bigger profits for the Corporation. Is there a thing left on the planet that hasn't been hosed up by somebody looking to profit?

References:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/417088
http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2009/01/falling-in-love.html
http://www.e-cookbooks.net/articles/squeen.htm