Cooler Corn

[Karen G]

I just got an email on this topic and thought Tuggers would find it interesting. I've never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. Anyone ever heard of it before?

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Am I the only person who hasn't heard of "cooler corn"?

As an obsessive food nerd, you'd expect that I would have
at least heard of it, but over the weekend I was blindsided
by the simple genius of this method for cooking loads of
corn on the cob (which is still in season, no matter that
summer already seems like a sad memory) perfectly.

I was hepped to it while visiting my family in Maine. Short
story: We like corn on the cob. And with eight adults at
the table, that means a couple of dozen ears. We would
have used the lobster pot to cook them all, but the lobster
pot was busy steaming lobster. Then my sister, a capable Maine
cook with years of camping experience says "let's do cooler
corn!" Before I can ask "what the hell is cooler corn?" a
Coleman cooler appears from the garage, is wiped clean,
then filled with the shucked ears. Next, two kettles-full of
boiling water are poured over the corn and the top closed.

Then nothing.

When we sat down to dinner 30 minutes later and opened it,
the corn was perfectly cooked. My mind was blown. And I'm
told that the corn will remain at the perfect level of doneness
for a couple of hours.

Turns out, Cooler Corn is pretty well known among the
outdoorsy set (I found a handful of mentions on various
camping websites). But for those of us who avoid tents as
much as possible, it's perfect for large barbecues and way
less of mess than grilling. In fact, I may even buy another
cooler just so I'm ready for next summer. Now that I'm in
the know.

 

[dmbrand]

We have grilled up corn ahead and put it into coolers before, but never tried this. I am for sure going to give this a go next summer! Thanks for sharing.

 

[SueDonJ]

I'd try this if it was my cooler and I knew how well I'd scrubbed it clean before putting corn in it.

We went to a wedding once where the bridal party provided all of the buffet offerings for dinner. In addition to the spread on the table which ran the gamut from Goldfish crackers on a paper plate to a silver platter of sliced beef tenderloin, there was a cooler under the table filled with a brazilian-style rice dish. Not in a container, mind you, but in the cooler. A full-size beat-up dirty-on-the-outside Coleman cooler full of rice and chopped sauteed veggies in a sauce, with no way of telling if the cooler was as dirty on the inside as it was on the outside before it was filled. Don't know why but that thing shocked me then and still shocks me whenever I think about it. Didn't see very many guests eating rice, either. Maybe if there's such a thing as Cooler Corn, there's also such a thing as Cooler Rice?

 

[sstug]

I'm with the OP, very surprised I've never heard of this before and will have to give it a try. Just wondering if all coolers can withstand the boiling water or if the insides are sometimes made of different materials.

 

[Passepartout]

I would definitely give this a go if I needed to prepare a lot of corn and all the stockpots were busy doing something else- like lobsters (YUM!). As long as it were clean of stuff that might transfer to the corn, it wouldn't have to be 'operating room' clean- you're going to dump a bunch of boiling water in it anyway.

The inside of a cooler seldom gets- or can take- the abuse of a good-ol' Coleman cooler. My old green metal one's gotta be nearly 50 years old.

Jim Ricks

 

[spirits]

I don't think it's a good idea

Every Grey Cup we have a lot of people over and I use our coolers to keep food hot. But the food is in casserole dishes and the boiling water is outside of those containers. Works beautifully. But I do not trust that the interior of a cooler is food safe and I would never put food into the interior of a new cooler without it being in a seperate container. With all the scare stories of shoddy practices in China where so much product is being made I would not take the chance.