I’ve been helping out with some sorts and spawns out at the Cultus Lake lab the past two weeks, we’re doing a conservation enhancement program with one of the Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks – the Early Stuart population. It ended up turning into a second program within the first because after the genetics were analysed it turned out that we had a few Bowron River sockeye mixed in with the Stuarts, and the Bowron fish were a stock that were also slated for enhancement efforts. It’s gone exceptionally well this year, and for that we are all grateful.
One of the things I appreciate about driving out the Valley at this time of year, besides the opportunity to work with amazing animals and fabulous people, particularly in a year where my field season went down the toilet because of COVID, is that I get to stop along the way home to pick up some cobs of freshly picked corn.
Chilliwack corn is exceptional. I will still argue that corn from deMille’s in Salmon Arm holds my taste memories captive, but Chilliwack corn at its peak season is something my tastebuds wait for every year.
Driving along the roads towards the lab where our fish are housed, one has to sometimes wait behind, or pass a tractor carrying a payload of corn in a wooden tote. Not all of the ears of corn make it to the farm stand though, and I smile when I see a lost ear of corn alone on the pavement. It’s like an exclamation mark on the road telling people to get their golden taste of summer before its fleeting season passes us by.
And it reminds me of summers past, when the family would sit outside at my grandparents with a pile of corn in front of us. We’d sit on the lawn and husk it, picking as many of the silk threads away as we could. Some of the corn would be boiled to perfection for dinner, in the huge enamelware corn pot that my grandmother used for that purpose alone.
I have that pot and I cherish it.
Much of the corn would be removed from the cobs and frozen for dinners in the middle of winter. A tasty reminder of summer days.
Every year, at the end of August, I take a week or two off to do some canning. I’ll probably do about 80 lbs of tomatoes – some canned as chopped or diced tomatoes, some as passata, some turned into tomato sauce, and some turned into BBQ sauce.
But I’ll also buy a few dozen ears of corn for two purposes.
I’ll roast the corn in it’s husks int eh oven for a bit, then cool them and remove the kernels for pressure canning.
And the cobs….those are what i’m really after for processing. I’ll take the cobs, toss them into that big corn pot with an onion, some peppercorns, and a bay leaf or two, and simmer it all for an hour or two. Then I’ll strain it and pressure can it.
Roasted corn stock.
You will never make a better corn chowder, or potato corn chowder, of chicken corn chowder…or any soup that has corn in it, than one made on a stock that is based on corn cobs.
Try it some time, it’s excellent!
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