![](\"http:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2015\/08\/24\/cornfungus_custom-8d2b4f06329dcf888f9200c08fb9fc688c6c8850-s300-c85.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nJill Neimark, the salt, 24 August 2015,\r\n\r\nScourge No More: Chefs Invite Corn Fungus To The Plate<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\nOne evening last July, Nat Bradford walked along rows of White\r\nBolita Mexican corn at his Sumter, S.C., farm, and nearly wept. All\r\n1,400 of the corn plants had been overtaken almost overnight by corn\r\nsmut, recalls Bradford, who’s also a landscape architect. The smut,\r\nfrom a fungus called Ustilago maydis, literally transforms each corn\r\nkernel into a bulbous, bulging bluish-grey gall. It is naturally\r\npresent in the soil and can be lofted easily into the air and onto\r\nplants.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nSmut is considered a scourge by most U.S. farmers, and it goes by\r\nthe nickname “devil’s corn.” Just one discolored kernel typically\r\nrenders an ear completely unsellable….\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nYep, that’s the way we’ve usually considered it. But keep reading:\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHe asked Bradford to harvest the smut by hand and bring it to\r\nCharleston, where Brock prepared tacos with it. “I love when nature\r\nthrows you a curveball, and it tastes like this,” says Brock. “It’s\r\ninsanely delicious and luxurious, like black truffles.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nBrock isn’t alone in his view—there has been a dedicated corn\r\nsmut underground for decades in America, even as corn growers and\r\nthe government have spent millions trying to eradicate it, forbid\r\nimports of it and breed strains of corn resistant to it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nBut in Mexico, corn smut is known as huitlacoche, and it’s long been\r\na delicacy . Traditionally, families would walk miles among the\r\ncornstalks just to gather a basket of ears infected with this\r\ndistant relative of mushrooms. It is still sold fresh at markets and\r\nused as a filling in tacos, quesadillas and soups. “It may have been\r\nambrosia of the Aztec gods with an inky, mushroomy flavor that is\r\nalmost impossible to describe,” wrote Diana Kennedy, the “Julia\r\nChild of Mexico,” in her 1986 book The Cuisines of Mexico.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nCuitlacoche grows when a drop of rain seeps into a husk of corn. In\r\nMexico’s corn-loving culture, the quasi-mushroom also provides\r\nnutrition: high amounts of the essential amino acid lysine that’s\r\nabsent in corn, as well as lots of fiber and protein. Together, corn\r\nand huitlacoche make a complete protein meal.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nI will pass on the Ustilago maydis, since I’m allergic to molds\r\nand many fungi.\r\nBut maybe it’s worth considering as a product.\r\n
\r\nOwed to Thom Kirkpatrick.\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corn smut a delicacy? Well, if truffles can be, why not? Jill Neimark, the salt, 24 August 2015, Scourge No More: Chefs Invite Corn Fungus To The Plate, One evening last July, Nat Bradford walked along rows of White Bolita Mexican corn at his Sumter, S.C., farm, and nearly wept. All 1,400 of the corn […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88,6],"tags":[24,93,2758,992,3,23,5,2,877,2760,2757,2759,25],"class_list":["post-3548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn","category-okra-paradise-farms","tag-brown-dog","tag-corn-2","tag-delicacy","tag-fungus","tag-georgia","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mexico","tag-okra-paradise-farms","tag-smut","tag-ustilago-maydis","tag-yellow-dog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-Ve","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3551,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions\/3551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}