The flavor of freshly harvested huitlacoche—grey-blue in color—hits like biting into baby lettuces newly plucked from the soil: crunchy, lightly sweet, and full of water.
“Guey, this is the real deal!” Paco Aguilar tells me excitedly, tearing off a lobe to pop into my mouth at Carnal, his tiny restaurant in Highland Park. “And the best part is that it lasts at least a week or two in the refrigerator!” he says.
Aguilar gently pan-fries the huitlacoche kernels to mix them with bellybutton-shaped chochoyotes (masa dumplings) that he handmakes and serves with a mixture of hoja santa and other mushrooms. When cooked, huitlacoche transforms, developing wild flavors that range between sweet corn on the longest day of the year and intensely grilled portabella mushrooms.
They attain a haunting color of inky spent transmission oil merging with squid ink. The huitlacoche packs perhaps the craziest balance of umami and sweetness in a single bite I’ve tasted, explaining why it has been a delicacy in Mexico for hundreds of years, traditionally tucked into handmade blue corn tortillas for oozy quesadillas.
Until the summer of 2022, the revered Mexican delicacy that some call a “corn truffle” or “corn smut” was unavailable in a fresh form in Los Angeles, the best city in the country for regional Mexican food. You could only source low-quality, processed huitlacoche in jars full of vinegar and preservatives, putting in a pickled flavor to the forefront instead of its natural mushroom flavor.
Until Carolina Aboumrad, a Mexico City native and truffle dealer, became curious about the ingredient and took it upon herself to import it. She started Huitlacoche Bodega, the first company in the country dedicated to importing and consistently supplying the corn fungus year-round. She opened the business with longtime friend and business partner Ricardo Olvera. They import it from the state of Mexico and fly it into the States on a weekly basis.
Clearance by the F.D.A., logistics, finding a reliable source, and the financial risks involved with educating the public and selling a whole new mushroom were just some of the barriers that Aboumrad and Olvera had to break to pave the way for fresh huitlacoche in Los Angeles.
“Huitlacoche is more expensive than other mushrooms, even in Mexico,” Olvera tells L.A. TACO. “Plus, you can’t grow huitlacoche in a lab like the other mushrooms—it needs open fields.”
“It took a Mexican truffle dealer to recognize huitlacoche’s importance and import it,” Aboumrad tells L.A. TACO in an interview. “I’ve been building the market for it in fine dining and hopefully expand to markets.”
“A paisa had to do it,” she jokes.
In five years, Aboumrad has grown the brand alongside Olvera. Today, it is featured in menus you’ll find at La Guelaguetza, Gracias Madre, Seco, Madre, Scratch Bar, Amiga Amore, Carnal, Somni, Socalo, Four Seasons Westlake Village, and Evil Cooks, along with nice restaurants in Texas, Hawaii, and New Orleans.
“We decided to switch to Carolina’s fresh huitlacoche because it’s as close to the original as we could find,” says Paulina Lopez, the co-owner of La Guelaguetza. “Even though it’s not coming from Oaxaca, it’s still from Mexico and matters to us. Staying true to the roots of Oaxacan cuisine means using the freshest, most authentic ingredients available, and this huitlacoche brings the flavor and quality we want to share with our guests. It’s all about honoring tradition while staying connected to the heart of Mexico.”
However, huitlacoche’s truffle-adjacent luxury and its “choose your own” adventure allure are also inspiring L.A. chefs to use it in whole new ways, like chef Danielle Duran-Zecca from Amiga Amore Mexitalian Eater, who whirls these corn truffles into her cacio e pepe.
“Our customers at first were hesitant to try it because they didn’t know what it was, or some would order it saying, ‘Oh, we have had cacio e pepe before,’” she says. “And at that point, we said it isn’t your typical cacio e pepe and we explain it has huitlacoche, the truffle of Mexico. It is earthy, floral, and umami. Most people are intrigued and become huge fans, while others who have had it are so excited we have huitlacoche in a pasta.”
However, the biggest x-factor in fresh huitlacoche’s success in L.A.’s food scene is its price: It’s 10 times pricier than the jarred stuff .That’s something Aboumrad and Olvera are very aware of. The goal is to be able to buy it and fly it in at larger volumes to eventually get the cost down.
“It’s expensive to fly it in, but I want to have it in supermarkets so everyone can buy it,” she says.
For now, you can either have her huitlacoche for date night at a natural wine bar like Seco in Silver Lake, carefully layered on top of a flaky, house-fried corn tostada. Or in El Sereno at Evil Cook’s new brick-and-mortar shop, Corazón Abierto, where it is served on fideo croquettes with huitlacoche and shaved truffle.
Either way, high or low, thanks to Aboumrad, you now get to have huitlacoche the way nature intended it.
Follow Huitlacoche Bodega on Instagram to find out where her fresh huitlacoche is offered around Los Angeles. You can also buy their huitlacoche and seasonal truffles through Tock here.
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