What the Rain Brings
The summer rains have come to Mexico, and they are bringing life wriggling up from dry ground. There are signs “Maguey Worms in Season!” and fresh corn fungus displayed front and center in the Sunday produce markets.
I have been surprised that Central Mexico’s summer hasn’t been hotter. While there are days of heat, in general it has been cooler than spring, and you can count on rain most afternoons. Though I have been griping about all the drizzly evenings, I am happy for the benefits to the soggy weather.
I’ve yet to go out for sauteed worms — I will get to it — but right now, I’m enjoying the bulbous ears of infected corn.
Huitlacoche is often described in English as corn mushroom, or corn fungus. Some have tried to raise its profile by calling it Mexican Truffle. These are misleading, not because of the culinary value, but because it makes you think of something that grows independently on the cob. Instead, huitlacoche is a spore that grows within the individual kernels, distending them, and disfiguring the ear.
Uncooked, they taste a bit earthy, gritty, and raw. You find them in quesadillas, sweetened with a good amount of onion, and spiced with epazote, a strong herb that flavors quesadillas and is popular in black beans as well. The picture above is my version of a quesadilla. What I learned was how strong they taste on their own — they need a good amount of onion and salt to cut their earthy, bitter taste.
Most roadside stand serve huitlacoche as almost a paste, and restaurants serve it usually as a drizzled sauce, liquefied beyond recognition. I much prefer the little bulbs entire in the quesadilla. They pop in your mouth and really hit you with their flavor.
Huitlacoche is also known as corn smut, an affliction for American fields as well. The big difference is that in the U.S. it is thrown out — and fought against. In Mexico, a single piece of corn commands three or four dollars, a good markup from the average “unspoilt” ear.
July 15th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Will - this is a problem. I am salivating from your huitlacoche quesadilla - and all I have to stem the tide is food in France. To further my own torment, where do you get your tortillas? And what else did you have in that quesadilla? Oh the sweet agony.
July 15th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Poor you, with only French food to fill the void
No, but huilacoche really is something… Onions sweeten it, some unblemished corn kernels too, apart from that, just salt, and epazote — which is a great spice, I don’t know how to describe the taste — maybe soapy? But in a good way. It’s very strong, and pungent.
Also, I put in some Oaxacan string cheese — but not too much. Despite the name, quesadillas don’t necesarily have queso — can be filled just with squash flowers, fried pork rind, whatever you want. The other day, I went to Morelos, and stopped at a roadside stand — the tortillas were freshly made blue tortillas from the hot comal, and they were filled just with huilacoche and onions. The problem is that there, as in most places, they overpower it with onion (cheaper). The black of the spores dyes everything, so it still looks good, but the earthy taste isn’t strong enough.
The tortillas — When I was living in Boston, I’d buy the corn tortillas they had available — they were fine but they must have had some powerful preservatives in them, because they would last for weeks. The ones I buy here only last a day, two at most. So, I have to go pretty much daily, and there are three tortilla places — the closest, which I default to — right next to the pate store — and across the death-wish intersection of Av. Coyoacan and Division del Norte — makes these sort of yellowish ones, which are fine.
There is a stand further away that makes them with cal, lime, and a native white corn that are softer, generally better. And the last place, is the close-by market in Colonia del Valle, where they make them by hand, but bring them in — never still warm like the fresh-off-the-machines ones — also sopes and other types of masa-bases for food — and they are a bit more expensive, thicker, and good as well and they also come in blue.
July 16th, 2005 at 9:37 pm
http://eggbeater.typepad.com/shuna/2005/07/childhood_memor.html
Tag, you’re it— another meme, this one a little smaller. I want to know what your favorite childhood food memeories are.
July 21st, 2005 at 11:14 am
I’m taking it, and enjoying thinking about childhood food memories– but I’m slow to get this down on paper, errr. computer. It’s that I have found myself busy helping Carlos out at work, doing, of all things, cold-calling for college admissions, and designing a newspaper advertisement. I’ll put this up by the weekend, I hope. Will.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
American Cookery…
American Cookery…