Hi, hi, Miss American Pie!

A recipe for supermarket corn on the cob

Photo by Stephanie McCabe on Unsplash

The first summer after arriving in Washington DC from Moscow, along with most of the capital’s inhabitants we hastened to the Mall for the 4th of July celebrations. Clouds came down and sagged over the humid city like a sheep’s dew-soaked fleece, shrouding the expansive and expensive firework display. Above the grey, we could only hear not see them crackle and pop. Still, probably less of a disaster than the Hogmanay firework display I watched some years later in Oban, a port on the west coast of Scotland. The operator flipped the switch and all the rockets, all the Catherine wheels, all the fountains, all the Roman candles - everything went up together. Thousands of pounds of excitement fizzled out in 50 seconds. Sadly, the “Oh f***!” of the poor benighted official has since been wiped from the short film.

The following Independence Day, we avoided the US capital and drove instead to Little Washington, a modest town in rural Virginia, to celebrate. Every year, the owner of a plantation house on a ridge at the town’s outskirts would invite the townsfolk to come away with their picnics from the ducking chair, the archery, the tombola, the pony rides in the main street, and spread them over his rolling sward that led down to a pond. When the sky drew dark, he would emerge from his mansion and light candles that he had positioned across the lawn to spell out his battle cry. The first year we went, he hadn’t collected quite enough of the yogurt pots that contained the candles. So the motto gleaming in the twilight read, “IN GOD WE T.”

Whether away with a picnic or at home in the backyard with a crusting barbecue, Independence Day food veers little from a long-established menu which curiously includes nothing English. With the 4th of July ritual of burning food over hot coals why are the specialities of the nation they were so enthusiastically severing from not submitted symbolically to roaring flames? Wouldn’t a baron of beef, not hamburgers, immolated on the barbecue better celebrate the renunciation of the British Isles?

The English don’t take lightly to being rejected. Rye is a bijou UK town on the south coast sometimes mistaken for a film set, where German George I, a Hanover king imported to fill the vacant Stuart throne and great-grandfather to George III, the loser of Britain’s 13 American colonies, landed in a turbulent storm for his first night in England. On the wall of the Mermaid Inn is a defiant sign on that American tourists like to pose by:

But settlers of nationalities other than English followed swiftly on their heels, bringing with them their own traditions, and competing legends as to their origins. If you want to start an argument among foodies, assert that the hamburger is German and named after Hamburg. Or named for Hamburg, New York. Or created by Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas in the 1880s and given wider exposure in 1904 at his sandwich stand at the St Louis World’s Fair. Which doesn’t explain its name.
*190 million pounds of ground beef are bought in the US in the week leading up to Independence Day.

The origin of the hot dog is less disputed. It was probably brought to the US by 19th century everything-pig-fanatical Germans, who called them frankfurters after Frankfurt in Germany, or wieners after Austria’s Vienna - Wien in German. 

Some contend barbecuing originated in Haiti, a cooking tradition of the Arawaks for whom ‘barbakoa’ referred not to the food but to the structure they built to roast a beast over an open fire. Others have it that it’s a Caribbean word in the language of the Taino tribe which first appeared in print in 1526, in a Spanish account of the West Indies. 
*68 percent of Americans light up the barbecue on the 4th of July.

In a happy coincidence, July is Baked Beans Month. These legumes are thought to have been introduced to the colonists by Native Americans tribes including the Iroquois, Narragansett and Penobscot. Others maintain they are North African, going from there to Europe before being brought by settlers to the US.
*2 million tons of molasses baked beans are eaten in the US on the 4th of July.

Originating in Mexico, Central American and Andean countries, corn-on-the cob was a common source of sustenance for Native Americans to the north, particularly among the Gallimore tribe of the Midwest, long before European settlers arrived. 
*Corn on the cob seems to be diminishing in its popularity: in 2021, Americans consumed 4.3 pounds of fresh sweetcorn each during the season, down by half from 9.2 pounds in 2010.

Potatoes were first noted in 1537 in military records of a raid on an Inca village during a search for gold. First domesticated between 8000 and 5000 BC in what is now southern Peru and the extreme north west of Bolivia, they are believed to go back 10,000 years. But since tubers don’t preserve well, they aren’t easily identifiable in archaeological digs. Introduced to Europe from South America in the 1500s by Spanish conquistadors, Germans settlers are thought to have been responsible for their New World popularity. Mayonnaise wasn’t added to the 4th of July classic chilled potato salad until the early 20th century.
*Across 10 US states, potato salad is Independence Day’s most popular side dish, two more states than for baked beans and eight more than for coleslaw.

Coleslaw comes from the Dutch word for cabbage salad, ‘koolsla’, with ‘coleslaw’ first recorded as a word in 1794. Before the introduction of mayonnaise, it was dressed with a mixture of oil, vinegar, and melted butter.

Watermelon, with over 1000 varieties, is thought to have originated in Sudan. By 2000 BC, it was being cultivated in Egypt. 6000 year-old seeds found in the Libyan desert have been traced to the egusi (a curcubit) of Nigeria. Introduced to the US by European colonisers, the earliest record is of a plant growing in Florida in 1576. Thomas Jefferson, a fan, grew them at Monticello, his Virginia plantation.
*Watermelon beats all other fruits eaten on the 4th of July, at 125 million pounds consumed nationally.

But to celebrate the colours of the flag, fruit salads of strawberries (originating in the US in Virginia) and blueberries (native to America for 13,000 years) and laced with cream have their day.

More for the picnic quiz:
*Money projected to be spent in the US on food this year for the 4th of July? Over $6.9 billion.
*Quantity of Fourth of July food destined to end up in a landfill? On a normal day, the average American throws away a pound/500g of food. How many guests do you have?
*Presidents who died on Independence Day? Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe, but probably not from a surfeit of food.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I badly miss the sweetcorn sold at stands along Route 50 to the Delaware beaches, particularly Silver Queen, back then five for $2, straight from the fields. Like peas, corn begins to starch up as soon as it is picked, so if your only source is your supermarket, it will have lost that juicy burst on the tongue. The best way to combat this is the method from Craig Claiborne, legendary food writer of yore on the New York Times. Bring a deep pot of unsalted water to a rolling unsalted boil. Dump your shucked corn into it and immediately turn the water off. Wait five minutes then drain and eat, with salt and melted butter. Sweetcorn can be held this way for up to 45 minutes and still taste fresh. But no longer.