Sweet-bred corn sacrifices flavor

EXCELLENT article on corn (“Ripping Into Summer,” July 9). As an old corn breeder for General Foods and Birds Eye, I found it accurate and interesting. There are few of us outside the Central and South American highlands who even know how to spell teosinte, let alone who have seen or grown it.

Sweetness is the consumer’s index of freshness, but it is at the expense of real corn flavor. The consumer has voted for sweetness over flavor.

In the future, the standard of identity for sweet cob corn will be the super-sweets, and only us old-timers will remember Jubilee. (It’s much like General Foods did when it developed Cool Whip in the ‘60-’70s; kids in taste panels preferred it over whipped cream because the real cream was too thin and not as flavorful.)

Mike Fluchere

San Clemente