Dip it in boiing water for a few seconds.

The corn on the cob our great-grandmothers ate was starchy field corn that had to be boiled for a half hour or more to become tender.

Gradually, sweet corn hybrids containing more and more sugar were developed. That's why the fresh corn you may have eaten as you grew up was tender after cooking for only three minutes and, eventually, just one minute. Today you'll find even newer, supersweet corn varieties that contain so much sugar, up to 30 percent, that you need only heat them through, which takes less than a minute.

Some supersweet corn overcomes the biggest challenge to enjoying fresh corn at peak sweetness the loss of sweetness over time. Corn starts converting its sugar to starch once it is picked, leading fanatics to run freshly picked ears right to a pot of boiling water to enjoy them at their sweetest. But certain supersweet varieties have been bred to delay the conversion of sugar to starch for up to two weeks. This means that even ears of corn you buy at the supermarket can taste sugar sweet.