I am just back from an excellent holiday in Brittany. There was only one frustration - I love sweetcorn, and every second field all over Brittany was ripe sweetcorn. I couldn’t beleive my luck. However, even though it has been on sale in england for the last 4 weeks, there was not one shop, market, supermarket, or farm shop in Brittany selling it. My french is poor, and attempts at “avez vous du mais?” invariably lead to looks of bafflement. I almost took to raiding the fields in fustration. Do you just give it to your animals or grind it up to make meal?
Funny you should mention that. I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve never seen fresh sweetcorn for sale, at either the grocery or my twice-weekly marche. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place?
Tinned corn is popular enough here, maybe they just put it all in tins? I am not sure if they even eat corn-on-the-cob here. You’ll have to wait for a French person to turn up and tell us.
What could I add? Corn on the cob is pretty much unheard of here, and you won’t find it. Only exception : during the recent years I saw street vendors selling roasted corn cobs, along with the usual chesnusts in Paris. I suppose they target tourists.
As Anahita said, you can easily find tinned corn, though.
I’m not from france but from quebec. So I don’t know about how it goes oversee. But here, every grocery store is filled with sweetcorn all summer long. We even get parties called “epluchette de ble d’inde” Were we boiled the thing and eat it with butter and salt. Very good meal 
Everyone should try this at least once !!
I just spoke to a french colleague at work, and they said that they gave the corn to the animals. At least he agreed with me that it was a shame.
I am remineded of the story about the Scotsman who went to England and was so surprised to learn they did not eat oats there. “We feed oats to our horses” and Englishman told him despisingly. The Scot replied: “That would explain why England has the best horses and Scotland the best men”.
In France most maize is used as animal feed. What you see in the fields is not generally sweetcorn. Unlike scm101, I have no moral problems with taking a couple of cobs from a field, but if you cook them or try to at them raw, you’ll find that the maize is very floury, tough, and generally unpleasant to eat.
As an import from the “New World”, French cuisine does not use corn much. There are a few regional delicacies that use it but they are not well known. Cornflakes for breakfast cereal is probably about the extent of French people’s exposure to the grain.
And yes, the vast majority of the Maize that you see growing in fields in France is destined for animal consumption, little makes it onto the dinner table.
You will find baby corn spears in asian restaurants and tinned corn can sometimes be found in supermarkets but that’s no help if you are looking to butter up some juicy corn on the cob!
The best way to get corn on the cob in major French metropolitan areas is to go to a neighborhood populated by immigrants from the formerly French bits of sub-saharan West and Central Africa.
There you will generally find street vendors selling roasted corn on the cob (I have never seen it served boiled by them).
When I first lived in France I was in the quartier called Barbès in Paris where roasted corn is readily available. I was initially intrigued/shocked when I saw these buxom African women on the street corners lugging around large, steaming black plastic trash bags and yelling “Maïs maïs maïs!”
To an English-speaking ear it sounds like they are selling “Mice mice mice!”…
Fergus
I actually have bought some sweetcorn (on the cob) in France this summer. It was in the Alsace in the east of France. It was not easy to find and they were quite expensive. But the situation is not very different here in Germany…
In one of the low carb books it is said that the French use corn and potatoes for cows and pigs. I can’t recall the exact quote. Something like, “Corn is for pigs and potatoes are for cows.” Or vice versa.
Animals you all said. Think mostly chicken to be more precise. Corn fed chicken is considered superior to chicken fed on other grain for reasons that I am not aware of.
There is another application, which is at least as important as animal fodder; starch and corn oil. Both for direct consumption and as a step in producing margarine and other processed foods. The starch is also used for industrial applications in for instance the cloth and fabric industry.
Fresh sweet corn not being staple food is pretty universal in continental Europe, save Italy that has adopted corn and cornmeal as a more integral part of the cuisine.
Sparc
It’s versa, actually…
We eat a lot of potatoes, though…
Interesting. Not too long ago there was a thread about things you can only get in America, and I got jumped on just a bit for saying that fresh corn on the cob would be difficult.
::strides off making little “hmmph!” sounds::
It’s very difficult to find peanut butter too, here. Not that it worries me…
It’s even more difficult to find Lemond Custard. And that worries me.
And Stilton…There’s no way to find Stilton…