On 2 sitcoms this week I saw something I’ve never heard of: People shucking fresh sweet corn for Thanksgiving. Where do you get fresh corn in November?
One show was Suburgatory (set in New York) and the other was Up all Night (which I think is set in California). Is this something that people do in California and other regions of the US where the growing season is longer? I don’t think I’ve seen corn in the grocery store in a month. Is this a common thing that I’ve somehow missed until now?
I was grocery shopping Tuesday (day before yesterday), and I saw fresh sweet corn for sale. I live in North Texas. I also saw artichokes. I didn’t buy the corn or the artichokes, because neither looked particularly good.
However, I generally don’t buy fresh sweet corn in supermarkets. I buy frozen corn, because it’s usually fresher than the stuff that’s not frozen.
I think late corn can be grown in southern climates, but this year the drought probably killed most of it before it started.
New York is definitely too far north.
I remember on The Cleavland Show, his mother is shucking a pile of corn, while the boys play football, as some sort of family tradition. I didn’t really ponder the seasonal timing, given that its Virginia, it makes sense. I’m thinking, are they really going to eat that much corn? I mean there’s turkey, and stuffing and pie and … Cleveland and his dad and his son don’t strike me as vegivores … how did that tradition get started. Is this some ethnically African-American trope … corn pudding, cornbread, some other dish?
Martha Stewart has, at least once, surrounded her turkey platter with fresh figs. Maybe that works in California, but in the northeast, our fig trees are wrapped in burlap and covered with a tarp. And we’re weird for even having them.
I remember one Paula Deen’s Thanksgiving special, she preps her turkey, then goes outside, in shorts to put on her flip-flops, and go gather oysters for her stuffing. That doesn’t match the climate and geography for a lot of the US, but it does for some of it.
Someone could make a pretty cool Food Network special, just contrasting regional traditions in the US and Canada with regard to climate and geography. I’m thinking someone from Britain, like Gordon Ramsey, or Jamie Oliver, basically coping the Stephen Fry in America travelogue, but referencing the American holiday and food, as contrasted to Christmas lunch in Britain.
I’m not trying to be a smart-aleck, truly, I’m not. Bear in mind these are sit-coms we’re talking about, not documentaries. That said, according to How and When to Pick and Cook Sweet Corn, in the USA,
“Corn crops are planted beginning in April and last into June…
Corn is mainly harvested in October and is finished by the end of November.”
So, while unlikely, it’s not inconceivable that someone in the US could be shucking fresh corn at Thanksgiving.
I think this would be fascinating. Even if you don’t use Canada at all, the contrasts between New England and New Mexico, for instance, would be interesting.
Thanks for the link. According to thisthe harvest time in Pennsylvania (my neck of the woods) for sweet corn is mainly July 5 - August 31. I wonder what the difference is in the growing seasons for between sweet corn and feed corn, corn for meal, for corn syrup, and other kinds of corn (surely popcorn is grown somewhere). I know that I see corn in the field until at least late October, I always thought this was feed corn but I really don’t know anything about farming.
That probably refers to “dent” corn, not sweet corn. AB discusses the differences.
Sweet corn is typically picked from June to August in central Illinois. By November, sweet corn would be dent corn.