Maize
Oh, yeah, baby! It’s that golden season here in Romania. Time to hit up your local roadside vegetable salesperson and nab yourself some farm fresh porumb.
Looks good, doesn’t it? Alas, t’would seem beauty is only skin deep…
I guess I still haven’t watched enough episodes of Good Eats to know all the secrets to corn shopping. To make silk from a sow’s ear, my blunder bequeathed me a convenient excuse for more learning.
To keep things short, it’s a funny little world. Genetically modified “Bt corn” is quite popular throughout the United States and coming soon to the European Union.
Even though the Monsantos of the world turned Romania into a petri dish for a while, the transgenic experiments don’t seem to have benefits for maize production in Romania itself. As least, judging by the looks of our little friend there.
Without being an entomologician, myself, this delicious insect should be related to the infamous, feared, and reviled European corn borer. Ostrinia nubilalis has plagued farmers around the world until the Japanese discovered a bacteria that kills it.
Since then, humans have been spraying chemical pesticides with Bacillus thuringiensis to kill off the European pest and other edible bugs. These days to keep corn from being a home to these creatures, scientists have been playing God with the DNA of maize plants so they’ll now manufacture the toxin internally, thus driving away the creepy crawlers.
And it’s effective, too. The GMO corn cranks out the poison and sends the little larvae to heaven. Supposedly, this whole process is safe for you and me to eat, so we increasingly find it in stores.
Thanks, Romania!
Course, ’round he’ah in Sector 5, we dun hab nun o dem fancy ol’ transwhatchallits er genebicly mojificated mumbo jumbo. Yews kin take yer galdurn science hooey n stick it, futureboy.
Why, I reckon Rahova is jus’ a-fixin to keep thangs the old fashun way. Yep. Soze ya jus’ cuts ‘er with a knife like’n yoo wuz Davy Crockett himself. Yessir.
And that’s how she’s done folks. Outta sight, outta mind. Hoo, boy, I tell you whut. I’ve been more excited than a dog with two tails ever since I saw that corn sittin’ out in the sunshine.
So, iffin y’alls ain’t bothered none, I figger I’ll whip me up some porumb on the cob tonight!
Giddyap.
July 7th, 2007 at 3:57 am
I could send you some pics of the Butter & Sugar corn(which we are literally eating in a few minutes) you surely are missing right now..but that would be cruel….Don’t buy corn with silk that isn’t golden…it’s too old and dry to be any good, and the bugs will have gotten to it for sure…Just call me Alton Brown….:)
July 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Look he’ah, now, I say, look he’ah now, boy. Iffin I kin find me some of dat there gold thread, Imma git the old lady to knit me up some fancier britches. Until then, pardner, I’ll just a-keep on eatin’ these he’ah corn whatswegot n all. Mmhmm.
(Thanks for the tip. A.B. rules!)
July 7th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
yea, very special Ro food… It’s a little too late, but what about “dude” care cresc in duzi (dude - tree) hihihi . (dictionary says “mulberry tree”). Eating dude is a very interesting way of auto - painting…
Near roads or used like a fence ( ?) grows acacia - salcim. Acacia flowers are grouped in clusters (like grapes) Can you imagine acacia cluster or boucquet or what ever cooked pane? (eggs,a bit of flour, salt) - like schnitzel? It’s an almost lost art… But, as a former tree shaker and climber, I can guarantee that acacia flowers were eaten (better chewed) in their raw form, from the branch! No GMO acacia in ro now, I presume… so you’re my guest…
November 6th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
so you were in Romania 2 years and you left??you are an idiot, or perhaps just out of money…either way, you should have found a way (or a reason) to stay, I repeat, you are either an idiot or you’re gay(the women there are absolutely beatiful), either way, what kind of fool comes back to the states after living in Romania(Bran, Bucharest, Black Sea, take ur pick) it’s just sad, and also the fact that ur stupid enough to admit it…WOW.
Signed,
Been there 5x and would LOVE to live there
January 11th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
ma aja e la romania si nu aveti ce sa ne faceti asta e
:)))