Dear National Corn Growers Association,
I am writing you today to tell of my recent and wonderful experience with some corn. I'm not sure if you or one of your members are responsible for growing the exact ears that I in fact consumed, but perhaps they are a part of your association. The fact that a group of people such as yourselves can come together and associate is a wonderful thing. I'd like to join your club, frankly. Problem is, I don't know how to grow corn, and I own no land... so I'm reduced to buying it off of others. Not that I don't mind as it's probably better for the economy that way.
During a recent visit to Tennessee, my lady friend told me that one of her former coworkers was going to swing by to drop off some fresh corn that we could cook up with supper. Being a city guy, I'm not really all that keen on people bringing fresh anything to dinner, although I do like to consider myself open-minded to try these things. Now, I've had fresh corn before, although I don't remember being all that fond of it. The kernels get stuck between my teeth, and the lil' strings are kind of hard to clean off the ears fully... at least, these are things I recall from childhood.
But let me tell you, this corn that my lady's friend brought over that night was spectacular. She says it was harvested just a day prior, shucked for us... and there had to have been about 30 ears of corn there for us. I wasn't quite sure where to put it all. And so, I cooked some. And it was delicious. We ate it right off the cob, topped with some butter and salt.
Cut to a couple weeks later, and I'm back home in San Diego minding my own business when I see a giant mountain of corn at my local Von's, sold 6 for $1. I jumped on that and brought 'em all home where I shucked it, boiled some up and ate it plain (it was sweet corn), and then I tried something yesterday that I'd never done... I ate it raw, right off the cob. I'm not sure of the health effects, or even of the nutritional value (if you know, feel free to share) but it was pretty delicious.
That got me to wondering... how can they afford to sell 6 ears for $1? $.17 per ear is a killer deal, and I'm liable to make it part of my daily diet at that sort of price, but how is that fair to your corn growers? I'd guess that to grow 6, consumer-worthy ears, you'd need about 30 linear inches of planting space. Now, assuming the store has to turn a profit, along with the supplier and farmer, the value of that land has got to be pretty low... which makes me think you can grow this stuff in fairly average quality soil.
Taking that into consideration, I know of some places around San Diego, backlots and the whatnot, where I could get away with planting some of this stuff. Maybe I'd only turn out a few dozen ears, but would that be enough to help me gain entrance into your association? Do I actually need to sell this as a grower in order to be part of the association, or would just the mere fact that I can grow corn qualify me to join? I'm curious, because I was thinking about moving to Tennessee, and I know there's a lot of land out there. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's very lush.
Thanks again for growing all that corn. Keep it up!
Corntastic,
Daniel
