Corn Smut and Truffles: Disease or Delicacy?

Photo taken by AJ Cann, 2/19/2012, Available on Flickr

I recently received some questions from a reader with accompanying pictures of a most disgusting, alien looking gray and black growth on their corn. If any of you have seen this on the ears of corn in your garden, as this picture shows, it can be quite astounding.  When a plant disease is big enough you can hear it mocking you and you think it may be growing eyes it sparks a bit of curiosity and possibly resentment. Would you believe that this alarming growth is also used quite intentionally in cooking and there is a good chance that you have probably eaten some? Why don't we get to that in a minute?

Corn Smut

For must of us trying to grow a few rows of our favorite sweet corn along the sunny garden path, this growth is considered a most undesirable part of our summer gardening experience. As a disease this is called corn smut.  Basically it is a fungal growth caused most commonly by the fungus Ustilago.  

Inside the smooth gray covering lies black spores of Ustilago. According to The Ohio State University these spores overwinter in the soil for up to 2-3 years. When the gray sac or gal ruptures these spores are carried to and fro throughout your garden and soil in any manner of different ways.  Combine this with warm temperatures and moisture in early summer and wa-la: you have corn smut. Growing like yeast, the fungus can be noticeable on your corn within ten days of infection.

SO NOW WHAT?

If you happen to have corn smut on your ears and you don't want to keep it in an effort to really add some pizazz to your fall door-step halloween decorations there are some things you should do.

• Remove infected plant parts or entire plants immediately. Remember the spores can live for 2-3 years in the soil so getting rid of them means putting the infected plants in garbage bags and throwing them away. Don't compost them.
• Be careful not to injure plants by cultivating too close to the roots and stocks. These injuries create openings where the fungus enters and then multiplies.
• Incorporate crop rotation. Don't plant corn in the same location in the garden every year, but switch everything around from year to year. This also helps with many other garden problems and diseases.
• Probably most important is to plant varieties of corn that are much less susceptible to corn smut.  Disease resistant plants can do the bulk of the work in reducing disease problems and pesticide use in most plants.

Mexican Truffle

Photo taken by Ross Grady 7.29.2011, Available on Flickr

Amazingly and quite interestingly in Mexican cooking this corn "problem" is a real delicacy. In Mexico and Mexican cooking is is called Huitlacoche (pronounced whee-tla-KO-cheh), corn mushroom, or Mexican Truffle.  According to the Tijuana, Mexico, restaurant Aqui es Texcoco, Huitlacoche has a smoky, earthy taste and is used in stews, tamales, quesadillas, soups, salads, and deserts. 

It's good for your health also.  Several journals, including Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition and Food Chemistry have published research articles showing Huitlacoche has high levels of the amino acid Lysine, something corn has little of.  Lysine is an essential building block of proteins and plays a major role in a healthy body, yet the human body cannot produce it. 

And finally for the agricultural economists out there, further studies show Huitlacoche to be much more profitable than the corn it grows on. Millions of dollars have been spent in an effort to reduce corn smut from infecting commercial corn production.  Could you believe that some of the most fresh stages of corn smut being sold is bringing as much as $20 per pound?  

Now you can decide for yourself whether your corn fungus is a disease or a delicacy.  I suppose it depends on what you're in the mood for.