What Are Mushrooms?!
The History Of Mushrooms
Wild mushrooms have a long history of consumption. They were eaten by the earliest humans and were popular with upper-class Romans and Greeks, who had tasters to ensure they were safe to eat. Mushrooms are very popular in East Asia where they’re famed for their medicinal qualities and where the earliest recorded cultivation of mushrooms took place about 800 years ago.
Mushrooms are valued in cuisines across the world for their unique flavours, textures and appearance. Traditional mushroom recipes tend to involve simply sautéing the mushrooms, stuffing them or using them to make a sauce or soup, but recently they’re also seeing a surge in popularity for those opting for a plant-based diet, due to their ability to mimic or replace meat in a wide variety of dishes.
How Should Mushrooms Be Stored?
Mushrooms can be well-preserved by freezing, drying or even pickling, and if that’s what you want to do its best to consult a guide specific to the kind of mushroom you’re preserving. Otherwise, mushrooms can be kept in the fridge for up to a week, but the fresher the better. They should ideally be stored in a paper bag with the top folded over to help prevent the mushrooms from getting soggy. Mushrooms shouldn’t be kept close to pungent foods as, due to their porous flesh, they can absorb smells and flavours quite easily. Some mushrooms, the thinner, more delicate varieties usually, won’t last as long as others.
Nutritional Benefits Of Mushrooms
How To Select Mushrooms
The warning signs that a mushroom is going bad or already has, can be seen through its texture, smell and colour. Dark spots or stains on the cap are a clear sign your mushrooms have gone bad, as are darkening gills on the underside of the cap.
Mushrooms should be dry to the touch and should not have a film of moisture or be slimy. Mushrooms that are too old can also dry out and become wrinkly or develop cracks that weren’t there before. Lastly, fresh mushrooms do not have a very strong smell. Different varieties can smell slightly earthy, metallic, fruity or even like liquorice, but when mushrooms start smelling of fish or ammonia they’re well past the point of eating.
It’s normal for mushrooms to have some imperfections and variations in colour, and ultimately the best way to know you’re getting the best produce is to familiarise yourself with the mushroom in question while looking for those warning signs.
How Should Mushrooms Be Prepared?
Mushrooms are straightforward to prepare. They can be cleaned by brushing, wiping, rinsing or soaking, left whole or cut to the desired size or shape, and then cooked any way you like. Eating mushrooms raw is probably not advisable because they’re difficult for the body to digest and possibly poisonous. Even the common white mushroom contains a small amount of toxins normally destroyed by cooking.
To wash, or not to wash, that is the question! Traditional advice suggests gently brushing or tapping mushrooms and avoid any moisture to the mushroom. Any dirt on cultivated mushrooms is sterile anyway and it’s only the wild mushrooms that really need cleaning. The argument here is that mushrooms are porous, so getting them in contact with water degrades the mushroom and makes them soggy.
Other experts say that mushrooms are full of water anyway and don’t absorb much more at all. They suggest that cooking them after a soak or rinse and crowded together is actually a better method. Cooking them ‘wet’ means they cook in water longer, breaking down the mushroom and making them less porous by the time it evaporates. This results in less oil or fat being absorbed in the end. Maybe there’s a middle ground here – if you’re looking for delicious buttery mushrooms try the first method, and the second if you want less oily mushrooms.
How Do Mushrooms Grow?
Mushrooms grow from a mycelium, a root-like structure hidden in the wood or soil the mushroom is growing in. The mushrooms themselves are just the fruit of the mycelium, which is how they’re able to grow so quickly out of seemingly nothing. Their purpose is to spread fungal spores and propagate the plant. One of the largest living organisms in the world is a 2,000-year-old colony of honey fungus in Oregon that is invisible most of the year – the mycelium weighs up to 600 tons, while the mushrooms themselves only about half a ton.
Some fungi are parasitic, but the majority do not produce mushrooms. The mushrooms we eat get their nutrition by decomposing dead organic material. If you see mushrooms growing on a dying tree, it’s probably not the mushrooms fault!
The cultivation of mushrooms by humans is relatively recent, especially when it comes to formerly ‘wild’ mushrooms. The earliest techniques were as simple as placing logs next to trees already growing the mushroom. Refined modern methods involve almost laboratory conditions with the mushroom growing on carefully composed mixtures of materials like sawdust, woodchips and straw, or inserting those mixtures into logs. The temperature and chemical composition of the air is changed to promote different stages of growth and development.
Where Are Our Mushrooms Grown?
We buy our exotic mushrooms from Smithy mushrooms in Lancashire. Varieties include; Shitake, oyster, Hen of the woods, shimeji, enoki and eryngi. Established in 1989, Smithy Mushrooms has been developed continuously over the years to now feature 26 growing rooms cultivating a large variety of different, wild and exotic mushrooms. Our buyers have built a long-standing relationship over many years with the team at Smithy’s.
Varieties Of Mushroom
Common Mushroom
The common mushroom, like most varieties of mushroom really, is known by many names, but this is a special case! Button mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms, white mushrooms, portobello, portobellini… they’re all really just one species. As the mushrooms go through different stages of growth, they transform from a small button to having a large, flat cap with exposed gills. Although the white mushroom might be thought to be the common one, this wasn’t the case until 1925 when an American grower found a white mushroom among his ‘chestnut’ mushrooms. Fortunately, he was also a mycologist – a mushroom scientist and was able to propagate this chance mutation. These mushrooms are also called champignons, which is just the French word for ‘mushroom’. Their French name is champignon de Paris, which relates to how they were commercially grown in the limestone quarries around Paris. The common mushroom features in cuisines all over the world and is incredibly versatile, in part due to its four varieties each suited different purposes. Button mushrooms are good for cooking whole. If you want a deeper flavour from your mushroom, go for chestnuts, while white mushrooms are more neutral. The larger mushrooms are perfect for stuffing, grilling and producing larger slices.
Chanterelle (Girolle) Mushroom
The chanterelle, or girolle, is a wild mushroom. Yellow or orange in colour and with a faint fruity smell similar to apricots. The name chanterelle comes from the ancient Greek word kantharos, a special wine cup used for banquets and ceremonies, because the mushroom’s cap is concave like a cup, with false gills running up it. A flower might be a better comparison though! The chanterelle grows on soil in pine or hardwood forests across the world, including Britain. They emerge from around June to October and are associated with wild blueberries.
Chanterelles have a long history in European cuisine where they were popular among the nobility from the late Middle Ages onwards. They pair well with chicken, eggs, pork and veal in particular, but have a place in a wide variety of dishes. They have an unusual, mildly peppery flavour.
Grey Oyster Mushroom
Enoki Mushroom
King Oyster Mushroom
Shitake Mushroom
Porcini Mushroom
Morel Mushroom
Our Mushrooms
You can see some of the mushroom varieties we stock when available. Please contact our team to discuss your requirements, or login to our online ordering or app to order.
Mushroom Recipes
We’ve created some recipe dish ideas using delicious mushrooms to help inspire your menus!
Pressed Oyster Mushroom Steak, Scrambled Tofu And Potato And Kale Hash
Confit Of Celeriac With Truffle Wild Mushrooms & Parmesan Shard
Mushrooms On Toast!
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