Oven-Roasted Corn (The Nero Wolfe Method)

Murder is Corny by Rex Stout

Wolfe: It must be nearly mature, but not quite, and it must be picked not more than three hours before it reaches me. Do you eat sweet corn?

Cramer: Yes. You’re stalling.

Wolfe: No. Who cooks it?

Cramer: My wife. I haven’t got a Fritz.

Wolfe: Does she cook it in water?

Cramer: Sure. Is yours cooked in beer?

Wolfe: No. Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water.