The Devil's Corn
Saturday was a grand day. We began the day watching the Logan County Fair Parade, and the parade had everything you could want. Ella marched in the band, playing the cymbals. We sat and visited with friends and family. There were trucks and tractors, a few floats, and Rodeo Queens astride their horses, dolled up just so with shiny belt buckles and big "Queen hair." Politicians were waving and smiling and sweating; putting their name out there. There was all manner of candy tossed to the crowd, and countless sugar-buzzed children screeching and darting about, hoarding it. There were even men in fezzes driving glittering red dune buggies. And driving them in synchronized patterns, no less. It was that good.
Later, when it was really sweltering and humid, Ella and I drove to our corn field. Our corn looks as good as, if not better than, some of the irrigated corn, and that isn't something we can usually say. It has been spared hail, and had good rains at the right times. We wandered, sweating, among the eight foot tall rows of feed corn, where it is even hotter. There are no breezes in there. But we weren't looking for ears of sweet corn to eat. We were looking for the Devil's Corn, or Corn Smut.
Each year there are some corn plants that get infected with a fungus that is known around here as 'corn smut'. Other places in the US call it 'the Devil's Corn'. The fungus, Ustilado Maydis, causes the corn kernels to swell and turn a strange pale white and pink color, with the inside dark and full of spores just like a mushroom. In early winter, when we harvest the smutty corn, the dark spores fill the air like a thick black cloud of smoke trailing the combine. Around here it is considered a disgusting blight to be eradicated, but in central and south America it is called huitlacoche (or also cuitlacoche), and is considered a delicacy. The name, which comes from the Aztec language, translates to 'ravens' excrement'. Yum.
Nonetheless, we are nothing if not brave and adventurous, so Ella and I set off to gather enough to try it again for the second time. Last years inaugural attempt was none too successful, but I had new, internet gleaned recipes to try.
The Hopi call it 'nanpa', and I prepared some the way they do. I steamed it for ten minutes and fried it in butter, adding a few cloves of minced garlic right at the end. I cooked it until the small ones were crunchy and the larger ones were chewy. This was really, really tasty, but what isn't really tasty after being fried in butter with garlic? The flavor was nutty, earthy, mixed with fried corn and mushroomness. I felt compelled to put some garnish on the plate for the photo lest it look like a plate full of scat.
The second dish was a more traditional preparation, if my internet searching is at all accurate. I sauted the fungus with onions, garlic, peppers, zucchini, and spiced it with sage and mint (in lieu of epazote.) We ate it with toasted naan, and fresh pico de gallo. Again, it was very tasty; even with all the other ingredients, the smut lent a very distinct earthy mushroom flavor. How good was it really? Even Ella ate it.
After asking, ever so politely, "Pass the ravens' excrement, please."
huitlacoche 
Reader Comments (3)
Ok, I just have to say, "Thanks for NOT inviting me to dinner", because I really, truly try to be a good guest,
but eating raven's excrement is not on.
Love you guys, and, Ned, the blow by blow description of the parade, sitting right next to you, was great fun.
Are we on for next year?
Penny
um,yummy...I think
Well, you make it look okay, but we wouldn't even feed this to the cows. Myth told us it was like loco weed.
I dunno, think I'd chew the inside gum of a stalk before I et smut.