Donovan Kelly

On Radio Crummy, Jenna DeBow tried to keep chewing, but a loose front tooth slows her down,and she flitted like a butterfly, searching for the softest and sweetest spots on her cob.

“There’s a worm in my corn,” Nathan Voell said. My quest to determine the right way to eat corn on the cob was off to a shaky start. Our six other young volunteers, exhibitors at the Loudoun County Fair, paused in their exuberant chewing to inspect Nathan’s worm and to re-examine more closely their own ears of freshly steamed corn.

I broke the wormy end off Nathan’s corn. Brennan DeBow, the most exuberant eater in our focus group, resumed chewing wildly back and forth, in an as-the-ox-plows pattern. Older sister Krista stopped her wild chewing on the middle of the ear and assumed a more methodical typewriter attack. Youngest sister Jenna tried hard to keep up, but a loose front tooth hampered chewing, and she flitted like a butterfly, searching for the softest and sweetest spots on her cob. Mom finally cut the corn off the cob for her, and Jenna became a cutoff eater, a common practice among the very young and the very old.

The worm was forgotten in the best celebration of late summer: corn on the cob, butter and dripping chins. But what is the right way to eat corn on the cob?

My corn quest was on again.

Ten years ago, while sitting at the supper table, I was horrified to discover that the five members of my family were eating corn on the cob in five different ways. Where had I gone wrong as a Father? Why didn’t my family eat corn the right way, like me? Why weren’t they also Neat Wholly Rollers, corn eaters who roll the cob as they chew, after first carefully chewing the corn off both ends to make neat handles? Surely that was the right way to eat corn.

Grimly I watched my daughter the Typewriter (always chewing left to right), my son the non-neat Wholly Roller, my son-in-law the Ox (chewing left to right, and then back again, right to left, “as the ox plows.”) and my wife the Butterfly, flitting from spot to spot and leaving behind a most messy ear.

Bewildered, I conducted a survey and wrote for the Washington Post in 1997 on the corn eating habits of about 200 readers. The results were not encouraging.

• 47% were Typewriters (Always chewing left to right)
• 8% Old Testament (right to left)
• 7% Oxen (chewing “as the ox plows” left to right, then right to left)
• 8% Wholly Rollers (rolling the cob as they chewed to preserve butter)
• 3% Backsliders (Wholly Rollers long enough to chew corn free handles then becomeTypewriters)
• 8% Popsicle People (chew while holding cob vertically)
• 5% Butterflies (flit from spot to spot on the cob)
• 14% The Others, mostly Cutoffs who slice the corn off the cob

But that was then. Surely the world has come to its senses and started to eat corn right by now. Time for a new survey.

And where better to begin than in Loudoun County, one of the fastest growing counties in the Nation, with lots of new people coming in who have never even seen a typewriter and perhaps were not Typewriter corn eaters. Also and alas, an opportunity to enjoy an increasingly endangered supply of fresh local corn.

And where better to begin in Loudoun than at the County Fair with our young focus group, most of whom were rural kids with rabbits or sheep of their own.

David Furst will interview anyone, even Hershey the rabbit. Owner Krista DeBow is not so sure.

Next we’ll move on to the Big Corn Count as part of the Summer Reading and Eating program at Cascades Library (August 5 at 2:00 pm. Call 703-444-3228 for directions and to reserve an ear of corn.)

And to celebrate National Farmers Market Week (August 6-12), look for us at the Loudoun Farm Markets in Purcellville (4:30 on Thursday August 10) and Leesburg (10 AM Saturday, August 12). Contact Visit loudounfarmersmarkets.com or call 540/687-4257 for more information.