Reference point
Stand beside a row of corn grilling on a pavement stall and take a breath.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Sweet, smoky, lightly charred at the edges, with a milky layer underneath from the young kernels.
The three layers come from three different sources: smoke from the charcoal, char from the kernel skins, milk from the starch not yet fully ripe. Very few street foods have such a clear structure.
Boiled corn loses the first two layers completely. The same ingredient, and the whole difference lies in the method.
How to smell it
Stand three metres from the row of corn, downwind. At that distance the three layers can still be separated. Stand right beside it and the smoke drowns everything.
Why this one is hard
Because smoke is the strongest layer and it drowns the other two. You have to deliberately ignore the smoke to hear the milky part at the bottom.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Grilled corn
Gourmand family
Corn has three separable layers: smoke, char, milk. Sweet potato is denser and more even, with an earthy note from the skin that corn lacks.
Scientific note
Young corn kernels contain more free sugar than mature ones, so they caramelise faster at charcoal temperatures. At the same time the Maillard reaction between sugars and amino acids in the kernel produces pyrazines for the roasted note. The milky layer is dimethyl sulphide, a compound also found in boiled corn and in heated milk.
In Vietnamese life
Grilled corn is a winter food in Hanoi and a rainy-season food in Saigon. It goes with the pavement and with waiting — one of the few foods where the wait is part of the experience.