After we have had our fill of fresh roasted chicos with butter, salt, chile, lemon pepper, and other toppings, we have to get to work on stringing up the chicos so that they can dry completely. We use needles that are approximately 6 inches long that we made out of wire clothes hangars. We completely husk the ears and stab the root of the cob with the wire hangar and string them together like a big “necklace” of corn with about 10 cobs each. We then hang the “necklace” to dry. It will take about 3 weeks to dry. Some people make braids with the leaves of the corn cob and hang those to dry. But I have found that this method has a greater likelihood of resulting in moldy chicos than removing all the leaves and stringing them together as a “necklace” without the leaves.
Here you see Kiko (Francisco) Pacheco hanging chicos from nails on the rafters of our portal. The portal is shaded and protects the chicos from rain so that they can dry completely
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