How do you compare the "value" of corn off the cob vs. corn-on-the-cob?
Right off the bat, I have to admit, we love fresh corn so much that we visit a u-pick farm at least once per summer, when the corn is ripe and ready for us to pick. And before local corn is ready, we also buy produce-stand, corn-on-the-cob, a couple of times per summer.
But for many recipes and meals, on-the-cob isn't necessary. Like corn relish, corn salsa, and corn pudding. All three of those dishes do fine with frozen and even canned corn.
Last week, I had my choice with corn. I could buy fresh ears at Target in the produce section, for 3/$1. Or, at Cash & Carry, I could buy 5-lb bags of frozen corn for $3.49.
With the corn-on-the-cob, my family would need a minimum of 3 ears, for $1. (Breaking each ear in half, that would give us 6 small servings of corn.) With the frozen corn, 16 ounces is about what I would serve our family, for a cost of 70 cents. But these aren't really equivalent servings, are they?
A medium-sized ear of fresh corn has about 3/4 cup of kernels. 3/4 cup of kernels weighs about .27 lb. To get the same amount of corn cut off of the cob, to equal 16 ounces of frozen corn, I would need to buy 3.70 ears of fresh corn, at a cost of $1.22. So, comparing the two, fresh corn-on-the-cob vs. frozen corn, the same amount of fresh corn costs $1.22, as frozen at 70 cents.
For our family, with Cash & Carry's price on frozen corn being my "buy" price for frozen cut corn, corn-on-the-cob needs to come down to 5 ears for $1, which yields about 74 cents per pound of cut kernels.
Your prices may vary. But for you to compare, remember this:
- 1 average ear of fresh corn yields about 3/4 cup of kernels
- those 3/4 cup of kernels from 1 ear of corn weigh about .27 pound (just over a quarter-lb)
- it takes about 3.7 ears of fresh corn to equal 1 pound (16-oz) of kernels
- if you're comparing the costs between canned and fresh, a typical can of corn kernels weighs about 15 ounces, and contains about 1 1/2 cups of drained corn, or .54 pound. It takes about 1.85 of the 15-oz cans of corn to get 1 pound of kernels. So, if you can get canned corn at 39 cents per can, that would be about 72 cents per 1-pound of drained kernels, or what works out to be roughly my "good" price on frozen corn.
What all of this means for my family is that in summer, I DO buy frozen corn, for using in recipes. But we also "splurge" on roasting ears a few times per summer, for the experience of eating corn-on-the-cob. However, we're aware that when fresh corn prices are 3/$1, or even 4/$1, it's not the best buy, and it is the experience of eating corn-on-the-cob that we're paying for.
FYI, unless you have a super-cheap source of fresh corn, it's almost never the best deal to cut corn off the cob to freeze for winter. Commercially-frozen corn will, in most cases, be cheaper than doing it yourself.
