Resumen de Corn Soot Woman's Timeless Lesson: Eat Your Smut
A Cochiti Pueblo (New Mexico) folktale that encourages women to not discard maize affiicted with com smut (Ustilago maydis D.C.) might be puzzling to most non-native fanners and gardeners in the U.S. who treat this fungus as a repugnant pest. A survey of studies of southwestem Native American food sources shows that com smut was enjoyed as food and used for medicine andother purposes. In southem Mexico, cuitlacoche ( com smut) is both a traditional food anda highly praised gourmet item, available fresh in season as a market vegetable and year-round as a canned food. The author proposes that the U.S. has rejected com smut as food because it simply rejects most fungal foods and that there were unfounded concems about its toxicity. Based on cuitlacoche' s success in Mexico City's Nueva Cocina Mexicana, com smut may find acceptance as a new ingredient for southwestem nouvelle cuisine.
