Corn on the Cob Etiquette

The American Corn on the Cob 

Etiquette Conundrum  

The serving in eating of corn on the cob has been an enduring issue for American authorities on table manners. In “Hints on Etiquette,” 1844, Charles Day decreed that rather than gnaw at the cob, the diner should scrape the kernels into his or her plate and eat them with a fork. Frederick Stokes’, “Good Form: Dinners Ceremonious and Unceremonious,” of 1890, contrasted the crude gnawing from end to end with the more polite grasping with a folded napkin or a folded doily. 

Food writer and Ladies Home Journal editor, Sarah Tyson Rorer, America's first dietitian, proposed more demanding method of scoring each row of kernels and pressing out the content with the teeth, leaving the hulls attached to the cob. The ever practical Emily Post simply discounted corn on the cob as suitable food for formal dining, yet her friends all thought she had lost her mind, when Post served barbecue at a Martha’s Vineyard afternoon tea.

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia