#637 Jumbo Kernel

The other day when I wrote about candy corn. I couldn’t help but wonder if they came from a candy cob of some sort.
I like the word cob. Starts in the throat and ends on the lips with no tonguing in between.
On the cob. Kind of a single use phrase. You don’t say something like, well he’s certainly feeling on the cob today.
But corn cobs themselves have a variety of uses. They once made great pipes when no clay or meerschaum was handy. Granny and her corncob pipe is an American icon.
Cobs were also used as feed for the pigs. Nowadays they use it to enhance ethanol.
And who could forget those tales from our grandparents about using corncobs in the outhouse. Whenever my grandma would see a commercial about “softer” toilet paper, she would huff in derision. All toilet paper was soft to her, compared to using a corncob as a hygiene device. Paper and loofa and brillo pad rolled into one convenient tool of nature.
Kind of turned the call of nature into a “youch.”
I wonder if they used those little corncob holders like they have at thanksgiving tables.
Those two-pronged dealies you poke into either end of the cob so you don’t burn your delicate fingers. We’ve softened a bit since medieval folk grabbed flaming haunches of meat and gulped them down.
Corn on the cob holders. Talk about a single use tool. Although I have employed them as toothpicks if I got a particularly gristly turkey leg.
Corn is great in other ways. It has a husk. Not a lot of our foods have a husk.
I like saying the word husk almost as much as I like saying cob. And you husk the corn of its husk. What a versatile word, that can be both verb and noun in the same sentence.
After you husk the husk and before you lay bare the cob, you must first remove the kernel.
Kernel, another wonderful word.
Husk, kernel, cob. A throaty threesome of rich language.
All from a slightly large piece of grass.
America, ya gotta love it