The Sweet Science of Corn: From Fields to Flavor

Cooking corn for optimal results, my recipe for Roasted Paneer and Sweet Corn Salad, and an easy mistake that could accidentally ruin a recipe with cornflour!

It starts the way so many things in summer do, with a flash of sweetness that is gone almost before you have tasted it. Sweet corn does this to us every year: one moment, the ears are stacked high at the market, their silks fraying like a hundred careless ponytails; the next, the season is over, the sugars turned to starch, and we are left wishing we had bought more, eaten more, grilled more.

Photo by Anastasia Pixner on Unsplash

In this paid subscriber newsletter, you will…

• Learn why temperature matters when cooking corn, and how I cook corn in hot but not boiling water

• Get my recipe for Roasted Paneer Sweet Corn Salad

• Discover a mistake that’s easy to make with cornflour!

A Little History in Every Bite

Corn, or maize, has been with us for at least 9,000 years, originating in southern Mexico, where early farmers domesticated it from a wild grass called teosinte. That grass had just a handful of kernels hidden in a tough shell. Over centuries of cultivation and selection, the kernels grew fat and tender, the plants taller, the cobs larger. By the time corn traveled north into the Americas and east across the oceans, it had become a staple grain that could feed villages and empires.

Sweet corn, the kind we heap with butter today, is a much younger arrival. Mutations in the corn plant reduced the production of starch in the kernels, resulting in more sugars being left behind. Farmers noticed the sweeter taste and began selecting for it. In the nineteenth century, sweet corn started to appear in seed catalogs in the United States. With the advent of refrigeration and faster transportation, it made its way to markets and kitchens around the world.

The Genetics of Sweetness

Today, the sweetness of your corn comes down to genes with names like sugary1 (su1), sugar-enhanced (se), and shrunken2 (sh2). The su1 mutation was the first known genetic change that created sweet corn by slowing starch production. Later, the sh2 mutation produced what we now call supersweet corn, with three to four times the sugar content of standard sweet corn and a slower rate of sugar loss after harvest. It is the reason modern sweet corn can travel from farm to market without losing all its sweetness on the way.

However, even with these genes, enzymes continue to function. As soon as corn is picked, the sugars begin to turn into starch. Chilling slows the reaction, so the advice remains the same: eat it as soon as you can, and if you cannot, keep it cold.

Science at the Stove

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

When corn meets heat, chemistry takes over. High heat triggers caramelization, breaking sugars into toasty, bittersweet compounds. It also fuels the Maillard reaction, the meeting of amino acids and sugars that gives roasted corn its nutty, savory notes. This is why charred corn tastes so different from corn boiled in water. Both are delicious. One is bright and sugary, the other smoky and complex. But too much heat could spell trouble!