Jose Ortiz, left, moves bins of freshly harvested Fresno State sweet corn. Chef Jimmy Pardini uses up to 300 ears of the university’s corn each week for his seasonal corn agnolotti, above.
market for sale. White corn is often the first harvest. Cantu, who grew up in the small city of Kerman west of Fresno, last season helped supervise crews that pass through the rows to collect ears in picking bags. Each field may be picked multiple times over several days as workers focus on harvesting just the right ears. Cantu has been around agriculture his entire life; his father is a labor contractor. He worked two years as a student assistant for sweet corn, although he didn’t know much about the heralded crop and its faithful fans until he got to campus. “It was definitely something I learned,” said Cantu, who prefers the yellow variety for its sweetness. “Seeing the lines and everything that first day we started selling it was pretty incredible.” ‘The corn is special’ Pardini, of The Annex Kitchen, says the restaurant may go through 200 to 300 ears a week to prepare its signature sweet corn agnolotti. The pasta quickly became a local favorite—then chef and food critic Simon Majumdar extended its fame by naming the
agnolotti his top dish of 2016. That was shared on Instagram and an episode of the Food Network’s “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” Pardini describes the agnolotti as “something that’s unique. I think when people eat it for the first time, they are surprised at what they are tasting.” He guards the recipe, but the ingredients include homemade pasta, a blend of pureed sweet corn and mascarpone cheese, a few chili flakes, a butter sauce and a finish of chives. Pardini isn’t done creating new dishes with Fresno State sweet corn. His second restaurant, Annesso Pizzeria, opened last summer—and he’s considering some options for the upcoming season. Maybe a sweet corn pizza? “It’s still in the developmental stages,” Pardini said. “But the corn is special. The community really gets excited for that corn and as a chef, I get excited to find a way to apply it and share my own interpretation.”
Cyndee Fontana-Ott cbmagazine@californiabountiful.com
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May/June 2022
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