The advent of the rainy season means different things to different people, but a common factor is that it brings bountiful harvests; leaves are greener and markets are flooded with many seasonal food crops – fresh from the farm.
Corn or maize (agbado in Yoruba, oka in Igbo and masara in Hausa) seems to be the most popular identified with rain. The moment the first rains came some weeks ago, some people were already looking forward to savouring the taste and flavour of delicious corn.
But opinions are divided on the goodness of the ‘early corn’.
“I don’t believe you can get the best of corn from the ones sold immediately after the first rains,” opined Iremide Onaolapo, an accountant who never misses fresh corn for lunch when it is in season.
Although the sellers tend to pass off days old corns as fresh ones, you can easily identify fresh corn – the husks are fresh, green and not dried out. They should envelope the ear and not fit too loosely around it.
You can also examine the kernels by gently pulling back on part of the husk. The kernels should be plump and tightly arranged in rows.
Unless you intend using the corn for some other purposes aside just boiling to eat, it is safer to buy the ones still in the husk, displayed in the shade and out of direct sun.
To enjoy the optimal sweetness of fresh corn, eat it the day of purchase, else store it in a tightly wrapped plastic bag in the refrigerator to be taken some other day. But don’t remove its husk, since this protects its flavour.
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Corn is mostly prepared roasted or boiled with or without the husk. If you intend boiling it without the husk, make sure not to add salt or overcook, as the corn will tend to become hard and lose its flavour. When it is cooked, you can cool it in cold (salted) water before eating.
“I prefer the corn cooked in its husk because that is when I really get that fresh corn taste. You have to be careful, though, because some may not be fresh, but the seller will add sugar to the water to be used for cooling the corn,” warned Babatunde Ilesanmi, a site engineer at Ikorodu, Lagos.
According to Mabel Idiagbonya, a nutritionist, boiling in the husk is probably the healthiest with the greatest flavour as wells as a method that allows for good nutrient retention.
In any of these forms, you can get more of the taste of corn when eaten on the cob with coconut or native pear (ube).
Taken off the cob, hard corn is soaked in water to soften before it is ground to be used for other meals like pap, corn pudding (agidi in Igbo and eko in Yoruba), and tuwo (tuwo masara in Hausa, oka in Egun and nri-oka in Igbo).
Fresh corn kernel also combines well with beans (adalu). Some people use cornmeal (ground dried maize) as an alternative to other swallows.
Corn can also be processed in several ways to make snacks. Some of the snacks are tanfiri/donkwa (ball-shaped mixture of dried ground groundnut and maize with or without addition of ‘kakandoro’ to prevent dysentery, sugar or pepper), kokoro (fried powdery roasted corn), aadun and popcorn (guguru in Yoruba. It may be eaten with roasted groundnut) and the popular Lagos Island snack, owowo (a mixture of corn and sliced coconut sweetened with sugar).
Some by-products of corn are also useful. According to Fola Julius, a traditional healer, it is advisable to cook medicinal barks or roots with omidun, the water obtained during the preparation of pap, than ordinary water.
The residual/chaff, after extracting pap from ground maize, is used in fishing.
“It is called efo in my dialect. We mould it into balls and use it as fish bait. It is more nutritious and inexpensive to get because the pap sellers usually throw it away,” explained Jimi Amos, an Ilaje, Ondo State-born fisherman.
Even if you cannot go through the rigours of preparing some other corn dishes, you cannot afford to miss out on the popular ‘mouth organ’ (cooked or roasted corn) this season.
