Kernels of Wisdom

“Corn is the butter of the vegetable world,” says Sarah Grueneberg, chef and partner, with Meg Sahs, of Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in Chicago

- OWEN DUGAN

“If you add corn to any dish, it automatically adds a layer of sweetness, richness and creaminess that most vegetables don’t add. Eggplant is not going to give you any of those descriptors.”

Her book Listen to Your Vegetables: Italian-Inspired Recipes for Every Season showcases her unfussy, confident style of cooking. Many of the recipes are supplemented with personal stories or observations that inform technique. Her method of scraping corn off the cob, which she inherited from her grandmother, sounds like a simple adjustment but, like decanting a burly wine, once you’ve tried it you’ll never go back.

Grueneberg grew up in Houston and spent time at her grandparents’ ranch in the summer: “My father’s mom—my oma—had Thanksgiving. It was a big holiday there. Scraped corn was always on the table. After she passed, my dad and aunt were carrying on saying there better be that scraped corn on the table. That perked my ears up because as a kid, it’s just corn in a bowl. As I became a chef, I realized my grandmothers really had a lot of great tips and tricks for produce because they lived off the land and those things were in their DNA.”