I have the sweetest of memories of the most beautiful and delicious ways one can eat corn in the world of corn eating. So I think. And probably millions of people will say the same, since corn is the world’s third-largest food crop.

My grandparents lived in the country side and my parents gave us the wonderful gift of taking my bother and I there as often as they could. Sometimes the corn was young, sometimes the corn was tall and we would run up and down the fields and grandfather would come out with some ears of corn in his hand and cook in the open fire. Sometimes there were lots of corn in baskets and other times corn being grated for cakes, fritters, custards. There was a small house by the side of the road in the way to my grandparent’s place where we would stop the car and buy a liter of dried corn and the woman helping us would pull some cords and turn the switch on. She would feed a sniping stone the grains and flour would come out in the other side. That gold powder was used for cakes, cookies, porridge, and worked great to thick a broth and be a meal too.

This is not that corn. This imperfect produce, is as beautiful in my eyes. This corn was on its way to trash, rescued by a friend, who gave to me.  Food rescue is important to me and my family. It does make a difference in how we eat, how we fill our plates. It teaches us different ways to preserve and eat since the produce may have a shorter window before it needs to be used. Above all, I can keep writing my family history by creatively using corn in my kitchen. There are some family corn recipes here on storycooking.com. In my list still… sweet corn ice cream!

Rescued Corn Fritters

5 cups of corn and 1 cup of chard stems chopped

1/2 cup of scallions, white and greens chopped

1 cup of eggs (4 depending on the size of the eggs you are using)

1/2 cup of cheese, I used a Mexican blend

1 cup of flour

Mix, pan fry until golden. We served with tahini sauce my daughter made and sprinkled with tajini. Tomato salad on the side.