Corn, Butter, and Sugar: a Street Dessert from Chiang Mai, Thailand

There’s a heck of a lot of squid for sale on the streets of Chiang Mai. But never fear! Other delicacies abound as well.

Here’s one you can even make home.

Boil fresh corn on the cob, inhaling its summer fragrance. When the corn is cooked, hoist a dripping cob out of the water and balance it end-up on a cutting board. Lift a gleaming silver knife and slice off the bright yellow kernels, strip by strip, watching each line of gold arch backwards and onto the cutting board. Praise the beauty!

Scoop the freed corn-ulets into a bowl. Dump a heaping tablespoon of butter in and see it melt and slide through the corn pyramid. Fairy dust on a cascade of sugar. Tip a can of condensed milk over it all and count to thirty as the it oozes down to join its sweet sisters. It smells like heaven.

Ploink in some raisins. Add a handful of unidentified white jelly balls. Then mix the contents of the bowl like crazy as the steam curls around the bright lights of your street kiosk! Your hair looks awfully pretty in this light against your red apron.

Smile, pour it all into your largest plastic cup, then sell it for fifteen Baht (forty-five cents) to the wide-eyed American traveler who’s been watching you, entranced.

The woman will eat the first bites of the corn cup while walking away, then stop short. Keep waiting and watching, because right now she is pivoting back towards you with a look of sheer joy on her face.

“THANK YOU!” she hollers, hand on her heart.

Well done, chef.