The Corntest between Taber Police Service and Cornwall Police Service came to a head on August 30 with Cornwall Police Service being declared the winners.
“The Taber Police service feels pretty bad. We feel – well, I honestly feel there’s a bit of a corn conspiracy that was happening,” Graham Abela, Chief of the Taber Police Service said.
Abela says that the idea for the Corntest came to life back when he was a fellow in the Canadian Police College’s executive development program and he got into a conversation with an RCMP officer named Vince Foy from Saskatchewan.
“He said, ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about this Taber corn; everyone knows that Cornwall corn is the best in Canada’,” Abela said. “That was kind of laying the gauntlet down. And I said, ‘Well, let’s have a competition.’ And he agreed.”
Abela says that he and Foy, who has since left the RCMP and become a Deputy Chief with the Cornwall Police in Ontario, had been conversing back and forth about the idea. Ultimately, Abela said, they selected August 30 as the day to hold the contest.
“We sent each other corn and his corn arrived here the next day,” Abela said. “Ours did not arrive, which is a problem. We paid for next-day delivery, but it took 10 days to get there, so we ended up having a competition here. We boiled the corn in the basement and had three judges assist us with blind tasting. And unfortunately, the three judges unanimously selected the Cornwall corn by a smidgen. They tested the corn on overall taste, appearance, sweetness, and crispiness.”
Although the Corntest did not work out in Taber’s favour this year, Abela says that the true benefactors were the two food banks in Taber and Cornwall.
All the money that was raised for the contest through pledges Abela says is going to the Taber Food Bank and the Agape Centre in Cornwall.
“Next year we’re gonna do it again,” Abela said. “We gotta get some retribution here. Although we tried to put our best foot forward this time, the cobs we selected were maybe just a little too young compared to the other corn. And their corn was really good.”
By Heather Cameron, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Sep 13, 2023 at 08:53
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