Barbecued sweet corn is a favourite beach snack on Rishikonda Beach in Andhra Pradesh. I went there for a few days once, with my wife and daughter, just to relax by the ocean. My daughter had a holiday from college and needed a break from studying and train tickets to Visakhaputnam were the most immediately available. Rishikonda is only 10 kilometres from the city. None of us had been there before but we had heard it was a quiet place with a beautiful beach. The trip from the train station, out to the beach, was very pleasant once we left the main road. A quiet narrow road follows the coast, allowing glimpses of the ocean between the trees, then drops down onto a scenic bay with a small marina and a beach cafe. Apart from the cafe, there are only a few wooden huts selling snacks and basic supplies and a couple of low-key beach resorts. We stayed in one of the the resorts and spent our days strolling along the beach in either direction and our evenings eating in the cafe or in our resort restaurant, both of which were rather good.
The beach was unspoilt and it was possible to walk far in either direction. We rarely met other people and we gathered a lot of exotic shells and strange pieces of drift wood. One day we saw a White-bellied Sea Eagle. The only crowded part was just by the cafe at the road-end where day trippers from Visakhaputnam came to paddle, play cricket or just stroll around. We usually stopped there for some refreshment on the way back from our walk. On the beach there were young lads with buckets of green coconuts and women grilling corn on little fires in round-bottomed steel containers like woks. Every day we had a grilled corn cob and a green coconut drink as a mini-snack before heading back to our room to shower before dinner.
Ingredients
Fresh whole corn cobs
1 lemon or lime
Chilli powder
Salt
Strip the leaves from the corn cobs and put them straight on to the hot coals. Turn them every minute or so to cook them evenly. They should be ready in five minutes. Use one of the leaves to clean the ash from the cobs and then rub a piece of lemon or lime over each. Sprinkle with a mixture of salt and chilli pepper and serve.