The Harvest!

About three months ago at Shoprite we discovered seed packets for American Sweet corn and thought, "Why not?" 

They have corn here... well Maize. 

A hard, white corn that is really only good for grinding into a mealie-meal that must be cooked into a porridge or other thick meal called n'shima. That doesn't prevent the Zambians from roasting it with the husks on and eating it like we would... but it tastes something like wax. 

No insult intended. Just true. 

We (I say we loosely. Although I did buy the seed packet!) began small not knowing exactly what it would taste like. The package looked like what we know as sweet corn, but we have NEVER seen it growing here, and have only seen it intermittently sold at the grocery store in the frozen section at 4 kwacha for one ear. That is like .60c each. And they are tiny. About half the size of what we Upstate NY'ers are used to.

Corn, and Bananas past that, and Sugar Cane in the distance. 

So Farmer Micah and Benson, our yard man, tilled up a 4x8 foot area and planted a few rows.

And waited.

And weeded.

And watered.

And waited some more...

Until TODAY!! Micah took two tester ears off the stalk and we boiled them up. They sure looked like American style sweet corn! But how would they taste??

 Well, 4 minutes later.......

 YUM!!!! AMAZING! Better than ever! Well, maybe 19 months without any fresh sweet corn may have have jaded our opinion, but it was amazing!!

 Victoria was skeptical. Only 4 minutes to cook?? Could that be right? The corn here has to be roasted for 30 minutes or boiled for ever before it is edible. Wax Maize tends to take much longer to cook.

 All it took was one taste! She is a believer! A little butter and salt and "Hello Deliciousness!! Where have you been all my life?" We may be wrecking the Zambian staple diet, one national at a time!

Needless to say we are planting some more! Maybe our whole plot will be seeded before too long! We harvested 24 beautiful ears of corn. We also harvested 7 itty bitty ears that we shucked boiled and ate within 5 minutes!

There are some times I find myself a teeny bit thankful I have only two children living with me. Not that I wouldn't love to be sharing these with all of my kids, but hey, they aren't here so I will take 6 instead of three! 

Love this African Sun for growing!