My wife’s grandmother was at one time a good cook. I know this because my wife has told me this. I do not have firsthand knowledge of this fact because by the time my wife and I started dating, Granny was not a good cook. The first time I ever remember eating at Granny’s house was either around Christmas or Thanksgiving. Several people were there and the counter was packed with food. I was following my wife in the line. She leaned over and whispered to me “Don’t eat anything that I don’t eat!” I followed this warning very carefully. Eating at Granny’s house could be dangerous.
There were some things that you were more comfortable with eating when you were there. We found out that salad was a dangerous choice one evening when we were looking at dates on bottles of dressing. At one time Granny had lived in the country but had moved into town. She had been in town for at least two years and we found bottles of dressing that had expiration dates from before she had moved. She had moved bad salad dressing to her new house.
Steak was something we felt comfortable eating there. She invited all of the family over to grill steaks one Saturday evening. The sun was still out when we pulled up in her driveway. She was at the grill trying to get the fire going. We stood outside and I helped her with the fire. She told us that she had been busy that day with the flowers around her house. She asked if we wanted to look at the flowers and we spent the next 20 minutes walking around her house looking at what she had done and talking about what else she could do. We got to the back porch of the house and she invited us to go in. She led us up the steps and to her back door. As she opened the door, smoke came bellowing out. I expected her to be excited or concerned. She just sighed in disgust and said “That corn on the cob!”
We went in and it was in fact a pot of corn of the cob that was smoking. At that point, I assumed that she had put it on and left it cooking for long enough that all of the water had time to boil out AND the ears of corn to get hot and dry enough to start smoking. Since that day, I have reconsidered and think it’s just as possible that she never put any water in the pot. What stands out to me even more it that based on her reaction, it’s completely reasonable to think that this was not the first time in her life that this had happened.
Later that evening when everyone had arrived and we were beginning to eat, we saw that there was a bowl full of corn on the cob. This was not new corn. It was the same corn that had smoked up the house, water was added to it, it was cooked more and put out for people to eat like nothing happened. Of course my wife and I spread the word to everyone to beware of the corn. My father-in-law was sitting at the table eating one of the ears of corn and my wife said to him, “Dad, you know that corn on the cob is burnt.” He replied “Yeah, I know” and he kept on eating like it was something he had been doing his entire life.