Over the course of the 8 day holiday that my husband and I spent in Mexico City, we visited a different market every day. The array of vegetables and fruits was astounding – Maracuya, Guanabana, Mamey, and Zapote Negro. When you think of Mexican cuisine, a doubt a pile of fresh produce comes to mind, but my experience of Mexican food was just that — yes, you can order a fresh blue corn quesadilla with squash flowers and no cheese from a street vendor without judgement or surprise.

I did a little cooking of my own while I was in DF, only because I wanted a chance to use the ever elusive huitlacoche, otherwise known as “corn smut” in the U.S. This naturally occurring fungus can easily wipe out 5 to 10 percent of a corn crop and the black dusty spores cause serious damage to harvest equipment. Corn growers, along with the federal government, have spent millions of dollars to develop smut-resistant strains of corn, with limited success. But the culinary minded crave the exotic growth far more than corn itself.

I have a lot of experience smuggling organic products across international borders. I collect local honey from nearly every country I visit. My best score was that unlabeled liquor bottle of sweetness purchased from a traveling salesman on a overnight train in India. I carried that precarious vessel around in my backpack for a month before sneaking it home to the safety of my kitchen. When road tripping cross-country, I was busted at the Canadian border with all my houseplants in the trunk of my car. An emotional wreck at the thought of my greens pets in the incinerator, the border patrol made an exception and allowed me to pass through, “just this once.” So, why would Mexico be any different? I had to bring something back. I got my hands on powdered molés, tajin, fish soup base and tortillas made with nopales, but the prize would be a fresh crop of huitlacoche, Mexican truffles.

You can buy hutilacoche canned online, but it is nearly impossible to find on the domestic retail market. So, I binged on the grey-blue fresh fungus while on my vacation, and for the pure thrill of it, stuffed an entire corn cob in my suitcase on my last day in Mexico. There is nothing like the thrill of cruising through immigration with delicious contraband in your toiletry bag. The very night we arrived home in New York, we scraped the mushroomy kernels off the cob, and added it to a kind of improvised esquites dish with lots of lime juice, chili and cilantro. I tossed a few Acadian Redfish fillets in the pan, closed the lid and allowed the fish to quickly poach in the liquid. Served with a side of Sriracha aoli, this was the best way to ease the transition home.