If the kernels are removed from the corn and served in a bowl, the dish is called esquites. These recipes are also made at home, where corn holders often replace the stick.

(In our household, fingers replace the corn holders and the stick.)

Corn on a stick has become popular in the U.S. at state fairs, and as street food in areas as disperse as Chicago and Texas.

Elote is the word for corn in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs (the Spanish word for corn is maíz).

The cooked corn is served with a range of condiments: butter, cotija cheese (and/or feta in the U.S.), chili powder, lemon or lime juice, mayonnaise, sour cream (crema in Mexico) and salt. Popular combinations include chili powder and lime juice in Mexico, butter and cheese in the U.S.

In some areas of Mexico, the cooked kernels are cut into a bowl, topped with the same condiments and eaten with a spoon.

In addition to conventional preparations and adaptations like the Cashew Elote recipe below, the seasonings and garnishes are adaptable to other cuisines, for example:

 
 
CORN PORN

Our colleague Hannah Kaminsky created what she calls “corn porn.”

“The simplest elements of a meal,” says Hannah, “those unassuming side dishes that are all too often overshadowed by flashier, more expensive or more complex main dishes, serve up far more nuance than they’re given credit for. A perfect example of this is the humble ear of corn.

“As summer marches on and those golden yellow kernels swell larger, juicier and sweeter underneath the hot sun, truly sumptuous fresh corn is a rare treat despite its ubiquity. A whole world of flavor can be found within those pale green husks, just beyond the tangled forest of corn silk, if only one knows how coax it out.

“Finesse is the key to letting such a pared-down dish shine, accentuating the inherent flavor of is base ingredients without covering them up with a heavy-handed smattering of seasonings. Elote, served up either straight on the cob or sheared off and mixed up in the trolelotes presentation, is worth getting excited about.”
ízquitl, toasted corn.)
 
This variation is called esquites (or ezquites—photo #2) in southern and central Mexico, and troles or trolelotes in the north. The word esquites comes from the Nahuatl word ízquitl, which is pronounced iz-KEE-tay and means toasted corn.
 
 
CORN PORN

Our colleague Hannah Kaminsky created what she calls “corn porn.”

“The simplest elements of a meal,” says Hannah, “those unassuming side dishes that are all too often overshadowed by flashier, more expensive or more complex main dishes, serve up far more nuance than they’re given credit for. A perfect example of this is the humble ear of corn.

[5] Cilantro and lime, accents that provide part of the signature flavor (photo © Lindsay Moe | Unsplash).

RECIPE: ELOTE OR ESQUITES WITH CASHEW SAUCE

Don’t want cashew sauce? Load up on the original condiments: butter, cotija cheese (substitute feta or use both), chili powder, lemon or lime juice, mayonnaise and sour cream.

Ingredients For 6-8 Servings

 
Preparation

1. SOAK the cashews for 3 hours and thoroughly drain them.

2. MAKE the sauce. Place the cashews, garlic and lime juice in a food processor and pulse to combine. Pause to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula so that the nuts are fairly well broken down. Add the nutritional yeast, agave, paprika, cayenne and salt, pulsing to incorporate.

3. DRIZZLE in the water, allowing the motor to run slowly to blend thoroughly. The sauce should still be a bit coarse in texture, and the small pieces of cashew that remain will emulate the traditional curds of cotija cheese.

5. CUT the kernels off the corn cobs and place them in a large bowl. Pour the cashew sauce on top and mix thoroughly. Add the fresh cilantro, tossing to combine. Divide the corn into 6 to 8 cups or bowls and top with a sprinkle of chili powder.
 

VARIATION: “JAPANESE ELOTE”

Here’s a fusion food: Mexican elote made with Japanese condiments. For four ears of corn, mix:

 
Preparation

1. MIX the butter and miso paste and slather it on the hot corn. Sprinkle each ear with chives and shichimi togarashi. Serve with lime wedges.
  

The practice of decorating eggshells is ancient, predating Christianity. Engraved ostrich eggs found in Africa date back 60,000 years. Decorated ostrich eggs, also replicated in gold and silver, have been found in 5,000-year-old graves in Egypt and Sumeria. [Source]

The Christian custom of decorating eggs at Easter has been traced to the early Christians of Mesopotamia, sometime after 100 B.C.E.

But you don’t need a religious context to decorate eggs. On a hot summer day, it’s a quiet activity that can be done while in the shade—or in the air conditioning. For summer themes, think beach, birds, blue sky, butterflies, flowers and yes, palm trees.

Cook a batch of eggs and let family and friends paint away. Take a vote afterward and give a prize for the “people’s choice.”

Then, you can peel the eggs for protein-rich snacking, or turn them into sliced egg sandwiches or egg salad.

You don’t have to hard-boil the eggs, either.

You can keep raw painted egs as art by removing the innards. Simply pierce each end of the shell with a thick sewing needle. Then, blow strongly on one of the holes. The contents will be expelled through the other hole.
 
WANT TO HARD-BOIL EGGS MORE EASILY?

Here are tips on how to make hard boiled eggs from the American Egg Board.
  

[1] Pisco Portón, one of the finest pisco brands (photo © Caraved Pisco).

[2] Pisco Punch. Here’s another version of the recipe using pineapple gum syrup (photo © Liber & Co.).

Pisco is made by distilling fermented grape juice into a high-proof spirit. It was developed by 16th-century Spanish settlers as an alternative to orujo, a pomace brandy that was being imported from Spain.

For Pisco Day, here are two Pisco punch recipes that aren’t the Pisco Sour. Punches are good for a crowd, can be made a day in advance, and are easy to pour from a pitcher.

Make the punch a day in advance, you can chill it thoroughly in the fridge so less ice will be required (it dilutes the drink as it melts). The larger the cubes, the slower they melt.

> The history of Pisco.

> The history of Pisco Punch is below.
 
 
RECIPE #1: EASY PISCO PUNCH

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. MUDDLE the lemon peels and sugar together and let sit for at least 90 minutes. Muddle the lemon and sugar again, then stir in the lemon juice.

2. ADD the pisco and the water and stir. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

3. CUT the star fruit into ¼ to ½ inch slices right before serving. To serve, pour into a glass pitcher and float the star fruit slices. Add ice cubes as needed.
 
________________

*Juice the three lemons after you cut the peels.
 

RECIPE #2: PINEAPPLE PISCO PUNCH

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. MIX all ingredients in a punch bowl or pitcher.

2. SERVE in rocks glasses; garnish with pineapple and strawberry squares and mint.
 
 
PISCO PUNCH HISTORY

While Pisco and the Pisco Sour are native to Peru, Pisco Punch was created in San Francisco in the late 19th century.

It’s believed that Pisco Punch was invented in a bar called the San Francisco Bank Exchange and Billiard Saloon, located where the Transamerica Pyramid is today.

Different people are credited with inventing Pisco Punch: John Torrence, one of the early owners of the bar; Duncan Nicol, the bar’s last owner; and Professor Jerry Burns, also of the Bank Exchange. (The bar opened in 1853 and closed in 1919 with the advent of Prohibition.)

Difford’s Guide credits Burns, but says the origin could lie with bartenders who made the drink aboard steamships of the late 1800s. These ships stopped in Peru en route to San Francisco.

Wherever the true origin, the San Francisco Bank Exchange’s recipe was a closely-guarded secret.

Today’s Pisco Punch is made with a combination of Pisco, pineapple gum syrup, lemon juice, and distilled water.

The recipe is based on one found among the papers of John Lannes, who took ownership of the San Francisco Bank Exchange right before it was forced to close due to Prohibition.

[4] An 1894 poster advertising Vin Mariani by Jules Chéret, a master of Belle Époque poster art who has been called the father of the modern poster (public domain image via Wikipedia).

According to Taste Atlas, there is also another ingredient that has been lost due over time, although it may have been Vin Mariani, a coca wine and patent medicine created in the 1860s by Angelo Mariani, a French chemist from the island of Corsica (image #4) [source].

It was made with Bordeaux wine. The ethanol in the wine acted as a solvent and extracted the cocaine from the coca leaves. (You can still buy Vin Mariani, although today’s recipe uses decocainized coca leaves.)

Today there’s no Vin Mariani in the basic recipe, although if you want to buy a bottle you can play around with it.

When you drink a Pisco Punch, you join the ranks of Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling, who both enjoyed it at the San Francisco Bank Exchange.

In his 1889 book From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel, Kipling wrote that the drink was “compounded of the shavings of cherub wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters.”
 
 

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We were surprised not too long ago when a friend mentioned she liked figs, but had only eaten figs in their dried form. Why, we asked, since they are easily available?

“I didn’t know what to do with them,” she replied.

Today’s first tip: Never let unfamiliarity stop you from trying a new food. Buy it, bring it home, look it up.

A sweet, soft and moist tree-ripened fig is luscious, eaten plain, with cheese or yogurt, or in many recipes. Just as with, say, fresh versus dried mango, it’s a completely different experience.

And the season is now: In the U.S., figs have two seasons: a short season in early summer and a main crop that starts in late summer and runs through fall.

Fresh figs are fragile and don’t travel well: The think skins easily split and the flesh can bruise. This makes fresh figs even more of a treat, worth seeking out.

THE HISTORY OF FIGS

Man has been cultivating figs for more than 11,400 years. It is now believed to be the first food cultivated by man, in the Near East* some 11,400 years ago. This is roughly 1,000 years before the other “earliest crops,” barley, legumes and wheat were domesticated in the region. [Source]

The fig is a member of the Moraceae binomial family, sometimes called the fig family. It’s the family member that’s most familiar to us: Other members include the banyan, breadfruit, mulberry and Osage orange (which not an orange).

There are almost 200 cultivars of figs, in a wide range of shapes, colors and textures. While most of think of figs as having skins that are brown, green, red or purple, take a look at the lovely yellow Tiger Stripe Fig.

Figs are now grown in warm, dry and sunny climates in around the globe (fig trees can’t tolerate temperatures below 20°F).

The top 10 fig producing countries are, by crop size, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Syria, United States, Brazil, Albania and Tunisia.

HOW TO ENJOY FRESH FIGS

Since figs are sweet, we think of them in the context of desserts or sweet snacks. But sweetness is also an excellent counterpoint to bitter, salty and spicy/hot foods.

Eat up: Figs are among the richest plant sources of calcium and fiber. They are rich in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and vitamins B6 and K, and are a good source of flavonoids and polyphenols (antioxidants). They are sodium-free and cholesterol/fat-free.

Don’t peel the figs. Enjoy them with breakfast cereal, yogurt or cottage cheese; sliced on sandwiches with fresh or aged cheese; chopped and added to rice; stuffed with cream cheese or goat cheese as an hors d’oeuvre; or raw or grilled as a side dish, cut in half and served with grilled meat or poultry.
Figs For Breakfast

Fresh figs with a sweet mascarpone dip; figs dipped into chocolate fondue. Photo courtesy California Figs.

 
Figs In Appetizers, Hors D’oeuvre And Salads

Cocktails With Figs

 
 
Dinner Courses With Figs

Desserts With Figs

 
TOO MANY FIGS?

If you have too many ripe figs, you can place them on paper towels, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate them for a few days. Or, place them in a freezer bag and freeze for up to six months.

Or, purée the ripe figs and use the purée in cocktails (mixed with white spirits, for example), smoothies, or as a topper for ice cream or sorbet (add sweetener as necessary).
 
Hungry yet?

We’ve written before on summer beers, brewed to be refreshing on a hot day: lighter in body with a moderate A.B.V. (alcohol by volume).

Perhaps the most interesting of the lighter, hot weather styles is the saison (say-ZONE, meaning “season” in French).

It is alternately referred to as farmhouse ale, since it originated on farmsteads in the Wallonia region of southern Belgium, a French-speaking region that shares a border with France.

Saison was traditionally brewed by farmers at the end of winter, then set aside for the summer, where it was happily consumed by field workers. Yes, beer drinking on the job was common, because before the advent of quality-tested municipal water, it was safer than many water supplies.

But that’s not your problem: You have a good municipal water supply. Instead, think about hosting a saison tasting party.

SAISON: THE FREESTYLE ALE

Often referred to as a dry, fruity Belgian ale, the interesting thing about saison is that no two taste the same. That’s because each farmer brewed it with whatever he or she* had on hand, so there was no common recipe.

We can’t think of any other style of beer where this is true. (See our Beer Glossary for the different styles of beer.)

The colors vary (golden, amber, orange, from light to dark); the aromas vary (citrusy/fruity, spicy). Perhaps what they have in common is their refreshing nature.

Another feature we happen to love to find in saisons is a mild “barnyard” character. Famous in certain Burgundy wines, it comes from from Brettanomyces yeasts that naturally exist on the farm (and can be purchased by breweries). “Brett,” as it’s often called, contributes earthy, musty aromas and some tart flavor.
 
*As history was written by men, the role of women is often overlooked or understated. For example, farmer’s “wives” were also farmers. They may not have had the physical strength to plow the field (and certainly, some did), but they did many other essential farm tasks. And they brewed beer!

Check your local shelves for supplies of saisons. While the classic Belgian import is Saison Dupont (a fruity and spicy style), American craft brewers make hoppy, malty, spicy, fruity and floral.

So, the real Tip Of The Day: Collect as many as you can find and invite friends for a saison tasting. Do it now, or make it your end-of-the-season Labor Day celebration.
 
What To Serve With Saison

Although most of us use “beer” to refer to all suds, three parts of the brewing process actually define what is a beer—illustrated by the lager style—and what is an ale.

Ales tend to be fruity-estery in aroma and flavor, while lagers are clean-tasting and crisp. These differences are created by:

The Yeast

 
Temperature and Time

 
The Ingredients

 
Thanks to BeerTutor.com for the quick tutorial.