That Hopkins Kid: Ah, summer’s sweetest taste of the first sweet corn picking

In the Midwest, summer doesn’t start with a date. It begins with a pickup bed full of sweet corn, a crooked handwritten sign, and enough butter to put a fine layer of lacquer on your arteries. For our family, that tradition started every spring with the whir of an eight-row International Cyclo Air Planter and the smell of fresh-turned dirt. The garden, that was Mom’s domain. She used a single-row planter from Earl May to grow “just for us” corn, picked right before dinner or supper. 

She staggered the planting dates so everything didn’t come prime at the same time. And when it came time to eat? No direct buttering. You slathered a slice of bread and rolled the ear in the slice wrapped around the ear. Salt? Light. Pepper? Liberally applied. The big patch, usually two passes or 16 rows on the edge of the field near the house, was the main event.

Dad would plant it slower than field corn to avoid skips, a quiet nod to how seriously he took sweet corn. From planting on, I could already imagine it, golden years with butter dripping. By mid-July, it was time. Morning picking sounds romantic until you’re three rows in, shirt soaked, surrounded by still air thick enough to chew. Dew-soaked leaves slapped your arms while the mud clung to your boots making you a few inches taller. Five-gallon buckets? Forget it.

You stacked corn on your chest like firewood, secured the pile with your chin, and waddled out, barely able to see over the top.

Raccoons were the freeloaders in all this. They’d nibble a few bites, ruin a dozen ears, and vanish. I guess those were “refuge plants,” an unofficial wildlife tax. The best ears, the ones untouched by teeth, were headed either to the freezer or the farmer’s market. At home, we turned the back-yard into a corn-shucking assembly line. Corn got dumped on a plywood table over sawhorses, husks tossed into a barrel, silk brushed off as best we could. Inside, Mom and Grandma cut the kernels into bowls and packed them into sandwich bags sealed with a twist tie or the classic tuck-and-fold. Those bags were pre-zip lock and they were stacked up in the freezer like edible gold, ready to be thawed and slathered in butter during the months when the garden slept.

Once we had enough picked, it was off to the Maryville Farmers Market. Early birds catch the best parking spot. We dropped the tailgate, moved part of the pile forward to showcase, and set up a cardboard sign that read, “Sweet Corn: 1 Dozen for $1.” Until one of the regulars walked up, looked at my brother Joe, and asked our price, regardless of the sign. When Joe told him “a dollar a dozen,” his reply was more command than statement: “’Round here, we get $2.”

A little market manipulation didn’t intimidate, though. We changed the sign to $2 but doubled the amount of corn given to each customer, two dozen for two bucks. That’s what you call value-based disruption, rural edition. Most customers were wonderful. A few folks inspected each ear like they were grading diamonds. But even they softened when two sunburned, blonde-haired kids handed them a bag with the bonus of extra ears. Today, I always stop for kids selling sweet corn in a parking lot. Especially if the sign says “FFA Sweet Corn.” Because behind that sign is a family, a field and a tradition that runs deeper than any root system Pioneer Seed ever developed. Sweet corn isn’t just food; it’s summer in your hands, sweat on your shirt, and butter on your bread. And eating it? Rotate it like an old typewriter, working left to right, row by row. And when you’re done? Lick your fingers for a little bit more buttery goodness.

It’s messy. It’s glorious. And it’s worth every muddy step it took to get there. 

Tom Brand, a native of Hopkins, spent more than 30 years connected to farm broadcasting and rural advocacy sharing stories from fenceposts to fairgrounds. He currently serves as director of the St. Joseph Community Alliance. He and his wife, Beth, live in St. Joseph, where he still believes ‘finger-licking good’ has nothing to do with Colonel Sanders and everything to do with corn on the cob.

If you like this story and others like it, pick up your copy of Tom’s book, “Welts On Your Butt a Calf Could Suck” at the Nodaway News Leader office, or online at www. RichardsonPress.com.