Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can’t shut,
If it’s uncut,
and unsubt- le.– “Smut” by Tom Lehrer
Dear old Tom Lehrer was singing about something MUCH different than what you see here. This is a picture of corn smut, which is a fungal infestation that occurs throughout North America. While farmers in this country consider corn smut an undesirable problem, in Mexico and Central America, this infected corn is actually a delicacy called huitlacoche (which is an Aztec word meaning “raven shit”).
Huitlacoche can be found in many different Mexican recipes, from stuffed mushrooms to quesadillas to flan.
It’s even popular enough that you can buy it canned from such Hispanic grocery product companies as Goya. This blogger offered himself up to the Aztec gods and ate some canned huitlacoche just so he could share the experience with us on the Internet. Like a lot of other delicacies, it is apparently an acquired taste.
GROOOOSSSSS. My sense of adventure ends with smut or even it’s more exotic cooler named version.
Waaaah! “Cuitlacoche (kweet-lah-KOH-chay) or Huitlacoche (dat-sfuckin-NAS-tee).” No kidding.