Butter your Corn the WarGames Way

The 1983 WarGames was important. It changed what many people thought of computers and even influenced Ronald Reagan. More importantly, it taught us all a very important lesson on how to butter corn.

I have never been a fan of the heat of summer, but the foods available during these months are some of my favorite. This year I have found myself obsessing over corn on the cob. I boil it for just a few minutes and then enjoy the sweet crisp crunch taste of summer. Usually with butter, salt, and pepper, although recently I have been using Everything But The Elote Seasoning Blend.

It is very easy to sprinkle stuff on corn, but it is really the butter that I want. I have tried lots of methods for applying butter to corn. I have rubbed it on using a stick like a fat delicious crayon. I have sprayed it on using a liquified butter product. I have even melted the butter and brushed it on with a BB brush. All of these methods work, but they are unsatisfying.

After a rewatch of WarGames, I decided to try the buttering method used in the film. For those who haven’t seen it, William Bogert who plays Mr. Lightman in the film amply butters a piece of bread and then uses that bread as a tool to butter the corn on the cob. The punchline of the scene is that the corn is raw.

I love bread, butter, and corn. So I gave it a shot. Using the softest white bread I could find, I applied room temperature butter to the bread and then proceeded to use the buttered bread like a cloth rubbing it around the corn.

Then after things are nice and butter I eat the slightly less buttery, but still delicious buttered bread, and follow it up with the corn.