Huitlacoche: Corn Smut

Big scale farming has made huge efforts to do away with corn fungal infections.  They of course have very good reasons for doing this being parasitic fungi can devastate a crop.  Today, there are a number of corn varieties that are resistant to fungal infections.  Native Americans and even some Mexican farmers today, however viewed corn fungal infections much differently.  For these people, corn fungal infections are are a good thing and even encouraged.  Why?  Well, they view corn mushrooms as a delicacy.  Historically, certain varieties of corn were actually bred so they would be easily infected with the fungus.  Some Native Americans even scratch and infect corn purposely to produce the mushrooms.  I have grown many different varieties of corn over the years and old heirloom Native American varieties almost always are far more susceptible to to fungal infections than any other type of corn.  Both modern and pioneer hybrids and heirloom varieties are far less susceptible to fungal infections.  This is simply because of selective breeding.  Native Americans selectively bred varieties that favored infection while pioneers and modern farmers selectively breed corn so it won't be infected.

This corn fungus, or mushroom, is more commonly called corn smut.  In Mexico it is commonly called Huitlachoche.  Corn smut spores are carried to corn plants through wind blown dust and rainfall.  For this reason, even a fields separated many miles from one another can infect each other.  Corn smut also infects plants best at temperatures above 80 or so degrees.  Being I have grown corn both in the Midwest and the Southwest I have observed corn smut infections to be much more prolific in the Southwest, presumable because it is so much hotter there.  I have also observed that corn smut infections are most prolific during the months of July and August in the Southwest, again presumably because of the higher temperatures.  Typically, the individual grains of corn become infected with the fungus.  Any part of the corn plant can become infected though, as long as a spore finds its way into damaged tissue.  Once damaged tissue is infected, the fungus grows and causes a tan-gray swelling of the area, also known as a mushroom.  This mushroom will eventually produce spores which can infect other parts of the corn or other corn plants.

Today, eating corn smut is not extremely common.  Corn smut typically is reserved for gourmet restaurant menu's where it is called either corn mushroom or huitlacoche.  It can occasionally be found canned in grocery stores.  It is actually quite expensive costing anywhere between 10 to 20 dollars a pound.  I have eaten fresh corn mushrooms a number of times.  When I ate it fresh, as in less than a day old, it was very good.  It had a sort of corn-mushroom-earthy flavor to it.  When I ate it after sitting in the refrigerator for several days it was quite gross and tasted like dirt. If you want to try corn mushroom yourself the easiest way to find it is probably by buying it canned.  If you are patient, you could also try to grow it yourself.  Corn mushrooms are safe to eat if cooked, but never eat a similar looking mushroom if found on a different plant.  For example, smuts that grow on wheat are extremely toxic.