If you want to talk, or better yet, eat corn, this is the town for it. Sweet corn that is, the buttery, squirty, corn-on-the-cob corn.
Hoopeston bills itself as the World Capital of Sweet Corn, a modest enough boast that is not likely to be disputed because sweet corn is not king in the Corn Belt.
Most of the corn you see as you drive through Illinois during the growing season is not sweet. Those dense fields of green are generally ripe with feed corn, grown for livestock feed and for just about every other purpose other than consumption-off-the-cob by humans.
Commercial feed corn is industrial-strength corn with nearly the same vast marketability as petroleum, water or Mike Ditka. The Corn Refiners Association in Washington, D.C., found 3,799 different uses of its product on supermarket shelves in 1989.
One bushel of corn, weighing 56 pounds and containing 72,800 kernels, can yield 31.5 pounds of starch, or 33 pounds of sweetener, or 2.5 gallons of fuel ethanol, or 12.4 pounds of 21-percent protein feed, or 3 pounds of 60 percent gluten meal or 1.5 pounds of corn oil, according to the refiners.
The Illinois Corn Marketing Board, based in Bloomington, Ill., concentrates its efforts on developing and promoting commercial uses for corn and its refined components: starch, solubles, gluten and hulls and germ.
These days, corn and corn products are used in the making of everything from abrasive papers and adhesives to explosives, yeasts and Zein protein products, according to Rod Weinzierl, director of market development for the corn marketing board.
This multi-purpose breed of corn also is used in food products, of course, but only after a certain amount of processing, as the corn-buyers at the Illinois Cereal Mill in Paris, Ill., and the Frito-Lay plant in Sidney, Ill., will attest.
There is corn, or some part of it, used in the production of your cereal, catsup, beer, ceiling tile, paint and varnish, firecrackers, peanut butter, soap, chewing gum, dog food, crayons and car tires, Weinzierl said.
And, if things continue to look bad in the Middle East, you can expect more and more corn in your gas tank, in the form of ethanol, for which 360 million bushels of corn were processed last year, he said.
Corn then, is one product that you can eat, drink and drive.
Still, when most people think of eating corn, it is sweet corn that they envision on their plates. But now, food experts say other corns are coming into a popularity that they have not enjoyed since the days when native American Indians relied on corn as a food staple.
Demand on the rise
The demand for corn food products is on the rise, in part because of the culinary trends in Mexican and Southwestern cooking and their use of flour corns such as masa harina, used for tortillas.
Food writer Betty Fussell, whose ”Book of Corn” will be released next year, wrote in a recent issue of Food Arts magazine that ”a new generation of American cooks is rediscovering corn as a national treasure, instead of a gross national product.”
Corn mush, once considered a gruel for the masses, has been reborn and dressed up as haute cuisine in the form of Italian polenta or Mexican maiz, Fussell wrote.
Corn hominy is a star in Southwestern cuisine, though in this venue it is known as posole in stews and soups, she added.
Green corn dishes made from immature corn of any breed are also appearing on menus and dinner tables of the fashionable and food-wise, she wrote.
But here in east central Illinois, and in other far-flung patches around the state, sweet corn still is the sweetheart.
Corn is king in Hoopeston
In Hoopeston, 100 miles south of Chicago near the Indiana border, the water tower wears an ear instead of a smile. The motif of the local McDonald`s is done up in a nod to the kernel rather than the clown. And the high school football team takes the field as the ”Hoopeston High Corn Jerkers.”
”The nickname dates back to the old days when kids would hand pick or
`jerk` sweet corn behind mule wagons before school in the harvest season,”
explained Bill Nicholls, plant manager of the Stokely`s U.S.A. processing plant in Hoopeston.
On Labor Day weekend, Hoopeston (pop. 6,100) will expand to about 60,000 during its 47th National Sweet Corn Festival. Forty-two tons of sweet corn will be cooked by the power of a 1905 steam engine, then buttered and given away free.
The theme this year is ”Aw Shucks, It`s CORNtageous.”
Hoopeston, you see, is into serious corn.
Though the town still clings to its title as the world`s capital of sweet corn, the Stokely`s plant is now the only remaining local canner of fresh sweet corn in Hoopeston, down from three or four in the past. And the acreage in sweet corn has diminished locally to scattered fields of a hundred acres or less, instead of thousands of acres.
But sweet corn still plays a strong role in the local economy, and in mid-August, the Stokley`s plant was just hitting stride in what has been a wet and wild year for sweet corn growers, Nicholls said.
Uneven growth for corn
The soggy summer has resulted in uneven growth and maturation in the fields that supply Stokely`s with sweet corn, he said. The plant draws from about 12,000 acres in surrounding east central Illinois and portions of Indiana and Michigan.
”We`re getting ripe ears alongside green ears because the corn didn`t mature at the same time, so it is not a good situation,” he said. ”This cool late-summer weather is good for people, but not so great for sweet corn.”
Unlike feed corn, which can be stored for months and months in grain elevators without losing its marketability, sweet corn has to be processed quickly so that its tasty natural sugars don`t turn to not-so-tasty starch, according to Cliff Luke, area field supervisor for Stokely`s.
The small window of eatability for sweet corn means that when the harvest begins, (generally in mid-July in most seasons), things get hopping at Stokely`s plant. The plant`s off-season personnel roster of 38 full-timers jumps to nearly 500, most of them Mexican migrant workers.
Sweet corn differs from feed corn in the way that it is harvested. Feed corn is removed from the cob by huge combine machines in the field, but the delicate sweet corn is brought in still in the husk and on the cob.
At the plant, the kernels are removed from the cob by machinery that somehow manages to strip the plump, sweet grains without destroying them.
The soft kernels are stripped, cleaned, canned and cooked (inside the can at about 260 degrees) and are ready for delivery to your grocery store less than six hours after the trucks dump the freshly-picked product at the plant`s back door, Luke said.
65 tons an hour
Because of the rigorous treatment the sweet corn gets in Stokely`s plant, those who grow it use special sweet corn varieties developed for processing. Farmers who grow sweet corn for sale at markets and on the cob use varieties that are bred for more delicate handling.
In peak processing season, the Stokely`s plant serves up 65 tons of corn an hour (there are about 2,800 ears of corn to the ton) in 18- to 20-hour shifts.
The corn comes out in the can in the form of the company`s Golden Cream Style Corn, Golden Kernel Corn, and, when lima beans are added, Whole Kernel Succotash. Stokely`s also processes corn in Hoopeston for sale under other brand names.
”As soon as we can get the corn in a can, cooked and then cooled, they are hauling it out of here,” said Nicholls, who noted that life at his plant will slow down only momentarily.
”And then the pumpkin crop rolls in.”
