Corn Smut
Corn smut (Ustilago maydis) infects maize and is a delicacy in Mexico, where it was historically enjoyed by the Aztecs. It grows in the ears of the corn crops and converts the kernels into black, powdery fungal tissues. The smut is sold in the markets in Mexico while other parts of the world (including the United States) continue to reject it as an ingredient for food dishes. The corn smut is currently referenced as huitlacoche to the Mexicans, and the Aztecs formerly called it cuitlacoche. Investigators have recently found that the amount of protein in the corn smuts is said to be greater than the corn, oats and clover hay.
Huitlacoche is used for some of the following recipes:
- soups
- stews
- steak sauces
- crepes
Read more about this topic: Smut (fungus)
Famous quotes containing the word corn:
“Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)