Your mom’s a smut

Does this look like something you’d want to eat?

Corn smut on my cutting board

If you ever get the chance, do eat it, because it’s delicious. It’s called huitlacoche or corn smut, and is in season with corn (ie not now).

I got my hands on a whole bunch of infected corn cobs last summer:

Corn smut on the cob

I used them to make a filling for plantain-dough empanadas. I told the lunch-eaters at SmugMug HQ that they had ‘corn mushrooms’ in them, and people loved them. It has a sort of delicate mushroom taste, earthy and rich, and went very well with roasted corn and beans. A mole poblano as a dipping/drizzling sauce made boss-man Don happy. Hopefully this summer I can get some again.