A Bug's Life

A Ponca Indian acquaintance I was visiting in Oklahoma in '76 noticed the somewhat quizzical attention I was paying to a large cardboard box on the kitchen counter, and explained "It's useful when I'm shredding corn off the cob -- otherwise, it splatters and goes just everywhere". (She had a small farm and grew a _lot_ of sweet corn to dry for use in soups and stews during the rest of the year, holding that this was more Traditional than freezing it in a big and expensive machine.) I noticed that she also had a special curved knife (made by her husband) that stripped the kernels off the cob in three strokes.