Tangled Metal wrote:There's a good item common in Mexico and nearby nations that's good for the harder to obtain essential amino acids. It's basically a maize / corn crop that's been exposed to a particular fungal species.
In the west and most of the world such an infection would have farmers burning the fields and not growing the crop their for a while. Over there they eat it because the fungal growth converts the maize carbohydrates into this amino acid in high, easily absorbed and utilised form.
I didn't know that about huitlacoche, but it's also grown and sold in the USA. I suspect that most huitlacoche sold in the USA is imported from Mexico, though. I think that the other Latin American nations turn their noses up at this practice, as former colleagues from Columbia and Honduras said they regarded it akin to eating mould, and something only poor Mexicans do.
I've eaten it in Mexico & thought it was rather like mushrooms. It was nice, but didn't seem special enough to pay the silly prices at US supermarkets, so I've not eaten it anywhere else.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
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