How to Eat Corn on the Cob - Because There IS a Wrong Way

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How to eat corn on the cob so you don't give the impression you're a tiny bit psychotic. 'Cause yes, you could actually be eating your corn in a way that gives people the wrong (or maybe right) impression of you. Like you didn't have enough to worry about in life.

Karen Bertelsen holding a wooden crate and standing in front of tall stalks of corn growing in the garden.

You're at a family BBQ or street festival and you innocently pick up a piece of corn on the cob to eat. Raising it towards your mouth, butter dripping from your wrist to your elbow, you take your first satisfying bite.

So far so good. You're on track. But be careful because curious eyes are on you the moment you start your second bite. Everyone is watching to see what you do next.

You of course don't notice because you're busy concentrating on the sweet bursts of flavour, the satisfying crunch, the pillowcase sized piece of corn wedged firmly between two molars.

Will your next bite take you ...

Straight across the cob in a line?

Or around it in circles?

For this you will be judged. It's a well-known fact that how you eat your corn is the best way to tell if you're demented.

Table of Contents

Eating corn across the long way

If you eat your cob straight across like a typewriter chances are you're pretty stable. You fold your clothes when you put them away, own a Golden Retriever and can generally be counted on to pick your spouse up from the airport on time without challenging anyone in the parking lot to a cage match.

You're eating corn the right way. The way almost everyone eats corn.

Anyone around who's watching you can relax and enjoy their day.

Eating corn in a circular pattern

If, on your next bite, you choose to start going in circles, you've got trouble.

If you eat your corn around the cob in circles it's a clear indication you could go rogue at any minute. You're a hippie, a wild child, maybe even an artist. You're basically immoral and everyone watching you knows it. YOU have parking tickets. Unpaid parking tickets. And you probably drank kombucha when everyone still thought it was a poisonous alien life form.

But you're not a complete lunatic.

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Eating corn like a lunatic

Those are even easier to spot. Those are the peckers. The people who randomly lift the cob of corn to the general direction of their face and wherever their mouth meets the cob, they bite.

If you eat your corn in a non-sensical pattern, you're giving a warning sign to everyone around you. One bite here, one bite there, another bite over on the other side until your corn on the cob looks like it has meth mouth.

Once anyone at the BBQ sees you eating your corn like this, you might as well get your fill of everything within arm's reach. Pack smoked ribs into your purse, dump a potato salad into your pants ... whatever you need to do, because you're not going to be invited to another grilling get together ever.

I eat my corn straight across like a typewriter. I know you were wondering. And I'm wondering about you.

HOW do you eat your corn? This is an informal poll and the information will not be held against you in a court of law. Just the court of public opinion.

Probably. But honestly, who knows these days.