Gastronautic Updates

I wrote about the caterpillar infecting fungus called cordyceps, right? Well I went to one of the herbalist shops on Avenue U and purchased $40 dollars worth. In fact that was the smallest amount I could buy since the damned fungi cost about $200 an ounce.
Here’s about a quarter of my haul:

They smell faintly of chocolate and dust. The caterpillar part tastes like cardboard and dust. The protruding fungus has a tingly – sour taste, not unpleasant at all. I did not notice any health effect.

Moving on. I also wrote about a corn infecting fungus that the Mexicans call Cuitlacoche. I ordered a can of Monteblanco brand Cuitlacoche through Amazon and Mexgrocer.

The giant fungus infected corn kernels have a texture similar to slippery jack mushrooms and a slightly smoky flavor. The ingredients include onions , jalapeno peppers and epazote ( Skunkweed aka Wormseed, aka Mexican tea aka West Indian goosefoot aka Jerusalem parsley aka Hedge mustard aka Sweet pigweed which supposedly has “antiflatulent powers” ) which kind of make it hard to say what it really tastes like on its own.

Adventures In Food : Kernel Panic

Thanks to the wonders of memepool I learned about Huitlacoche aka Cuitlacoche aka Corn Smut . It is basically fungus infected corn kernels that is sometimes called Mexican truffle. And thanks to froogle.com a can of it is on its way to me from .latingrocer.com . It’s probably not Atkins safe, but what the hell.

This really sucks, but I think Jarritos does not make any diet drinks. I guess they don’t have an obesity epidemic in Mexico.

Also, nobody seems to be crazy enough to sell Surstr�mming. So, Inter Net merchants and search engines, you are still not perfect.

Oh, that Vegemite and Mermite that I got from everythingaustralian.com rocks.