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Seven non-traditional uses of corn

The grain is being made into cocktails, pizza toppings, garnishes, and more

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 24, 2024

7 Slides

Corn is often regarded as a summertime delicacy, but the harvest of this beloved grain continues into October in North America, giving chefs plenty of time to continue to get creative with it.

So far corn season has been rife with innovation, sometimes with fresh kernels, but also with corn nuts, corn liqueurs, and corn syrups that are quite different from the high-fructose variety. 

Corn nuts, a popular snack in Peru as well as in the United States, garnish scallops at the Bayshore Club in Miami, while Nixta, a corn-based liqueur, is used in a cocktail at Knife Italian at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas, Las Colinas.

A corn-pineapple syrup is a key component to a cocktail at Adiõs in Birmingham, Ala., and whole as well as puréed corn kernels top a pizza at Mother Pizzeria in Newport, R.I.

Corn accompanies risotto in the arancini at The Wellington in Belmont, Mass., and it’s shaped into a football for a tlacoyo at Vela Bar y Cocina in Chicago.

And at Ceiba at the Conrad Orlando, a special mold was made so that a dessert at the restaurant resembles an ear of corn.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Update Sept. 26, 2024: An earlier version of this gallery misidentified the name of the person who created the Maïz dessert at Ceiba.

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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