What Huitlacoche means
Huitlacoche is a Mexican ingredient name of Nahuatl origin meaning "corn smut". It comes from cuitlacochin (maize ear infected with smut). It is pronounced wee-tlah-KOH-cheh, and it is most associated with central Mexico.
Etymology uncertain: the Classical Nahuatl word cuitlacochin is well attested but its internal composition is not settled, and the popular gloss sleeping excrement, from cuitlatl, is a guess.
About this origin. The etymology is uncertain, disputed, or the name is a modern brand rather than an old word. The reading above is the best-supported one; food writing repeats stories that the dictionaries do not confirm.
Huitlacoche is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The words that appear inside dish names: the chiles (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), the corn words (nixtamal, masa, tortilla, elote), and the tools (comal, molcajete, metate). Learn these and most menu items decode themselves.
