How Corn Brings Our Community Together

In one of my favorite episodes of "The Mind of a Chef", Sean Brock declares that there is no greater pleasure than making corn grits from corn you grew yourself. I couldn't agree more, though in my case, the pleasure comes from making cornbread.

This cornbread recipe was passed on to me by my dear friend Rebecca (thank you Rebecca!!), and has been hailed by some as "the best cornbread, ever". The roasted squash gives it a rich golden color and a moist, tender crumb. And when you use local organic corn that is freshly milled, the flavour is pure delight!

We grow a type of field corn called Early Riser which is an open-pollinated variety that is well-suited for northern climates since it is early to mature. We take great pride in growing our corn organically, without the use of any pesticides or chemical inputs and each year, we save the seeds to plant them again in the spring, meaning that over time, our crop is adapting to our unique growing conditions.

I love this corn because it's a bright buttery yellow (with the occasional deep copper-colored cob) and it makes beautiful cornmeal for baking. We mill it as we need it, using our KoMo kitchen mill, so it is as fresh as can be. The flavor is incredible.

This year, I discovered something else I love about this corn: it brings people together.

In late October, we hosted a corn picking party and invited everyone out to the farm to help us bring in our 2 acres of corn from the field. As they say, many hands make light work! But even more important than the helping hands was the wonderful company of friends of all ages enjoying a sunny fall day together. In farming communities across the country, this is how it used to be: neighbors helping neighbors. Corn husking bees were a much-anticipated yearly event each fall, usually involving a delicious feast. Following tradition, we served chili and cornbread made with our own homegrown beans and cornmeal - in fact the very corn that everyone was working so hard to pick and husk!

If I had to chose a word to describe our magical corn harvest day, it would be "connected". There was a real feeling of being connected to each other, and connected to the food we were eating. So when Luke Dick allowed me to use his song "Connected" in my video, I was over the moon.

As I worked on my video and we brought in the last of the corn, Oregon and Colorado were voting on a ballot measure to mandate the labeling of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Since most cornmeal that is bought commercially is made from unlabeled GMO corn, growing our own organic corn has a deep significance to me. Our beautiful golden ears of corn are proof that we don't need Monsanto's insecticide-laden patented corn seeds and that corn can be grown without polluting our soil, our air, and our bodies. So while I was husking corn and making my cornbread, I was also keeping a close eye on the polls. Sadly, both measures failed, which many say is due to millions of dollars worth of misleading ads funded by the biotech industry. So I want to dedicate this video to the many many volunteers who worked so hard to try to get these measures passed. In the meantime and as a consolation, I ate lots and lots of warm non-GMO cornbread slathered in butter! If something is ailing you, I hope you'll do the same, this cornbread really does soothe all woes. Bon appétit!