URBANA’S 34th SWEETCORN FESTIVAL, 2009
(Friday August 28, 5-11pm, and Saturday August 11am-11pm)
Many towns across the USA celebrate their sweet corn at this time of year, as part of end-of-summer festivities. Urbana’s festival has grown bigger and better over the years, which seems fitting in Illinois, the second-highest corn producer in the USA (and perhaps in the world).
A number of downtown streets are closed off to vehicle traffic, and workers set up two stages for a large variety of free musical events, featuring mostly local artists and groups. Booths and stalls line the streets, presided over by the newly-refurbished Clock and Bell Tower of the County Courthouse. Booths invite me to join the local yoga group, take part in a competition run by a radio station, or even join the Illinois Ski Club! I can buy handmade crystal jewelry and ornaments, silver jewelry, or wooden roses, and kids can ride small patient ponies, jump on various huge inflatable toys, or try their luck at fairground games. We can buy root beer, an American favorite, or Miller Lite Beer, or a number of Pepsi products to drink. Enticing smells waft over the air—funnel cakes, enchillads, tacos, icecream, Thai food, popcorn, Greek gyros and more—and the sound of music is everywhere. A steel band plays outside the Courthouse, some stalls have their own taped music, and much of the time someone performs on one of the stages. 
But, the highlight is the sweet corn. At the end of one of the blocked-off streets an army of volunteers works. A long serving table across the street blocks the work area, where an old-time steam engine toots and blows steam (and produces hot water to cook all the corn). This year, the corn has just come in (normally it peaks at the end of July but is later this year due to weather conditions), so it should be more juice and tasty than usual. The festival sweet corn is all from in-state farms. About 30,000 ears of ripe corn arrived in a refrigerated truck, packed in wooden pallets. To have perfectly cooked corn, the cooking process must be regulated. So, the volunteers take corn out of the truck, and put it into the shucker, where they can shuck about 3,500 ears an hour. From shucking, ideally the corn should get into a vat of boiling water within 10 minutes, where they flash-cook it for about 5 minutes (so as not to overcook it). More volunteers remove the corn into other containers near the serving table, where customers can choose to have their corn with butter, or not.
A number of ticket tents are along the streets, and all transactions are with pre-bought tickets—one ticket costs $1. Corn is a real bargain at 2 ears of corn for one ticket. The lines for the corn are very long but move quickly, thanks to the efficient volunteers.
I walked to the festival for a while on both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and the atmosphere was wonderfully friendly and festive. Crowds wander, chat and eat; kids run around holding bags of popcorn, licking icecreams or biting into corn in a paper holder; people gather in front of the stages and clap along with the music. A noteworthy part of the musical lineup was the CUperstars (what a clever play on words) on Saturday afternoon. This is a group of local youth, aged 13-19, who sing, many of them really well, but all with gusto and confidence. A future star or two?
Another successful festival and a fun time.
