Earlier this morning, I walked down to the farmers’ market to take pictures for an online photo gallery each of us reporters does once every few weeks. I was hoping to find lots of people and other interesting things. Boy did today’s market deliver.

Huge dahlias, mounds of colorful carrots, truckloads of melons, happy faces and lots of sun made the trip more than worth it. I found plenty of eggplants, just weeks after lamenting their absence here. I bought a really cool melon and subsequently forgot the name. I got one beautiful large dahlia to make my desk pretty. And, best of all, I was given fresh huitlacoche.

There, decorating a truck loaded with melons, were ears of corn with fresh huitlacoche sticking out the ends. As I eagerly approached the truck, Lou from Moses Lake, who was selling the melons, greeted me with “You know huitlacoche?” A short discussion ensued after I explained how I had eaten it a few years ago in Oaxaca. The two of us, along with produce vendor Amado Becerra from Quincy got into a discussion of how to cook the fungus and how few people around here know what it is. As it turns out, Lou wasn’t selling the huitlacoche, he just had it there for the sake of conversation. So, he gave me one for free. He offered more, but since I’m the only one in my family who likes the stuff, I declined, hoping to pass the earthy mushroom-like fungus on to the next food lover.

Huitlacoche, known as corn smut to most corn growers from the U.S. is considered in many places to be a fungal pest. But, in Mexico it’s eaten pretty frequently, and in some places the fungus is considered a gourmet item. You might even be able to find it canned in a really well-stocked Mexican grocery.

I know what I plan to do with mine today. It’s going to get sauteed with a few slices of onion and some butter and made into a nice taco with some fresh corn tortillas. How fun!