What is huitlacoche? How can it be so elegant that it has earned the epithet 'the Mexican truffle' at the same time that it is called corn smut?

The name huitlacoche or cuitlacoche, comes from the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs and Toltecs. Huitlacoche is an edible fungus which has an earthy, delicate flavor, qualifying it as the Mexican Truffle.

In its uncooked form, with flavors hidden, huitlacoche is not a candidate for a beauty pageant.  It is a dry, unattractive grey-black mass of spores that grows parasitically on corn, hence its name corn smut. In taste, however, it is creamy and delicious. 

Huitlacoche has been eaten in Mexico and Central America since Aztec times. Bernardino de Sahagún, the great chronicler of the foods that greeted the Conquistadors, wrote that huitlacoche must be either cooked in a pot or toasted on a comal, so we know that the Spanish explorers were aware of huitlacoche.

Huitlacoche grows directly inside the individual corn kernel, disfiguring the ear. Until the early 1990's, farmers in the United States, unaware of the prized properties of the fungus, believed their corn was contaminated and threw the ears away. On the other hand, farmers in Mexico rejoiced at the sight of corn smut, knowing that an ear of corn with huitlacoche would bring more at the market than the perfect ear with evenly proportioned kernels. Since farmers in the United States have sophisticated, there are experiments today to attempt to grow huitlacoche.

Huitlacoche is unfamiliar to many gourmet home cooks, though not to chefs who use it for its earthy flavor. When cooked, it has a savory, woody flavor with a hint of sweetness due to the presence of vanillin in the spores. Huitlacoche is picked when young, and is surprisingly creamy and delicious.

 

 

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