wAntAn productions: Cameron Highlands Honey Maize

Monday, November 07, 2005

Cameron Highlands Honey Maize

Was fooling around with the Sony T3 yesterday... introducing the Honey Maize (or jan jhi bau suk in romanized Cantonese which means pearl maize). You can find these babies in abundance if you go up to Cameron Highlands. I'm not sure what they are known as other parts of the world but the folks up in Cameron Highlands sell it as Honey Maize so that's what I'm calling it.

I don't quite remember how much it's sold for up in Camerons. If memory serves it's RM10 for a bunch of 5 or 6 (that's the tourist price... if you're local you probably get it much cheaper). The one I devoured yesterday was free.

Just another maize, right?

Look inside and you get an idea of why it's called pearl maize in Chinese. The kernels are strangely coloured yellow and white (like pearl).

While not quite as sweet as honey it really is surprisingly sweet. The great thing about this maize is that it's readily edible raw. There's no need to steam it and coat it with butter/salt... it tastes just as great raw as it is cooked. In fact I've been told that the preferred way to eat it is raw. As an analogy eating the honey maize cooked is like eating cooked sashimi :)