Have you grown corn smut on purpose?

If you have, please tell me how.  I had an incredible meal last night including a handful of corn smut I found on my sweet corn.  I hope to find some more.  I would love to grow some on purpose!

Nope, never have but I have thought about it. Best way I suspect would be to save and replant seed from plants that had it. Probably a delicate balance there as might get hard to do if the smut got so prevalent that it prevented the ability to get mature seeds. I've occasionally noticed a plant that developed smut more on the stalk than the ear itself. Breeding for that would be an interesting project. I don't know if it would even be possible but a variety that provided both smut and undamaged ears would be pretty sweet.  

I can tell you what didn't work for me.  I tried freezing a few nice size fruiting bodies (fresh, not dried) and the next year i made a kind of paste and smeared it on the stems right where the ears of corn were starting to develop (like baby corn size).  I'm not sure, and there are probably a lot of other factors involved (timing and weather conditions especially--2016 was pretty hot and dry here), but I think freezing killed the spores.  

If I were ever to try it again, I would dry the fruiting bodies first and just store them in a cool, dark place rather than freezing.  And I might apply the spore slurry a little later in the development stage.  And do it when the weather's going to be humid.

Does anyone think that taking a tissue sample and growing it out on agar might work?  I wonder if the mycelium could be implanted under the husks, maybe on the silks?

Yep, I'm sure the weather, humidity and so on is important to whether or not the spores colonize but I didn't think of saving them to inoculate plants.

My idea was to develop by selection a race of corn that was genetically more susceptible to infection and letting nature take it's course. I don't know that it would work and I'm pretty sure it is the exact opposite of what most corn breeders are working toward and actually I select against it myself.

Last year for example I had two plants that produced nice smut near the base of the stalks. I allowed them and the smut to grow but I de-tasseled them so as not to let smut susceptibility cross into my other plants. I left the smut, for the most part, as a test to see if other plants were also susceptible but it did not spread.  

I actually have seed from those two plants and I did have the idea that they could be planted as a start on smut producing corn variety. I doubt I will ever follow up with it.