How do they get corn kernels off the cob?

Cafe Society
1

Sometimes I like to use fresh sweet corn in soups, chili, etc. My method is to take an ear and slice the kernels off with a knife – which gets most of it. The same method is used, I suppose, for making creamed corn. But in frozen or canned corn, the kernels are whole and intact, down to the tip. How do they do that? Get the kernel off the cob without cutting it?

2

There is a little tool you can buy that does it. It kind of looks like a metal ring, with a handle on it, and you push it down kind of like an apple corer. Wish I could find you a pic of one on the internet.

Think I saw them for sale at Williams Sonoma, on the gadget wall. Might be worth a call to see if they carry such a thing.

3

Aha… here we go

4

I like the gadget wall. I make a game out of trying to guess what the tools are for.

5

I love How It’s Made, a geeky little program that takes you behind the scenes of industry to show us the processes that are used to make the things we use.

They had a segment on canned corn in which we learned:

  • it takes 4 hours from picking to canning
  • the cobs are husked
  • the cobs are lined up on a conveyor belt (of sorts)
  • the cobs are passed through rotating knives
  • the kernels are washed and other ingredients are added (sugar, etc.)

The rotating knives are some sort of spring loaded blades (I think there were three shown) in a circular setup so that the cobs are fed through and the whole cob is stripped from the point to the stalk. I guess that the pressure of the springs force the kernels out of their holders rather than cut the kernels.

It sounds similar to this (at the risk of watching this thread degrading into a Python quote-fest):

Mr. Wiggin:
This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these…

Client 1:
Excuse me.

Mr. Wiggin:
Yes?

Client 1:
Did you say ‘knives’?

Mr. Wiggin:
Rotating knives, yes.

Client 2:
Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?

Mr. Wiggin:
…Does that not fit in with your plans?

Client 1:
Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.

etc…

6

So, would there be any way for me to duplicate this process in my kitchen? (The Williams-Sonoma gadget apparently slices the kernels off the cob, just like what I do with a knife only, one presumes, more efficiently.)