Welcome

Welcome to my blog

This is where I post various musings about wildlife and ecology, observations of interesting species (often invertebrates)
and bits of research that grab my attention. As well as blogging, I undertake professional ecological & wildlife surveys
covering invertebrates, plants, birds, reptiles, amphibians and some mammals, plus habitat assessment and management
advice
. I don't work on planning applications/for developers. The pages on the right will tell you more about my work,
main interests and key projects, and you can follow my academic work here.

Sunday 22 September 2013

Dining on smut and other corny puns

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the smut fungus Ustilago maydis that grows on sweetcorn. While doing that, I found out that it is edible, and in Mexico is eaten as a delicacy called 'huitlacoche'. I also mentioned that if I found some more that wasn't quite so over-mature, I'd try it. I found some, I cooked it, and I ate it. So, in a rare departure from ecology on 'the spot', here are a couple of pics of the taste test.

A cob with U. maydis growing on it, being chopped and prepared.
Bits of huitlacoche fried and ready to eat.
The outcome of the taste test was pretty favourable - unsurprisingly a kind of cross between mushroom and sweetcorn, and quite subtle. I've found another growth in our sweetcorn patch, so that will be cultivated and I'll try more next time...

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