Mushrooming Possibilities

In a moment of consternation, a friend once told me that he couldn’t swing a dead cat in Chicago without hitting one of his ex-wives. I thought about that as I walked around my local grocery store recently — substituting mushrooms for the ex-wives. I couldn’t travel up a single aisle of the grocery without seeing at least one product that contained mushrooms; I must admit, though, that I was looking for them. The proliferation of the mushroom in American cooking within the last 10 years is gigantic, seemingly outdone only by the number of cookbooks dedicated solely to this culinary king of the fungi world.

In the not-too-distant past, you could count on seeing mushrooms (if you were looking — and most people were not) in about three places in the grocery: the white buttons (champignons) in the produce section; the good ol’ cream of mushroom in the soup cans made famous by Andy Warhol; and the sliced mushrooms topping pizza in the freezer section.

Nowadays, most groceries carry multiple fresh varieties (cultivated varieties are called wild mushrooms; we will get to that later), and there is a full-selection of dried mushrooms, as well. In fact, you can find a mushroom application in nearly every grocery category: porcini ravioli, shiitake burrito, mushroom tapenade, wild-mushroom soup and portobello polenta, just to name a few. Look closely and you will see chanterelle, bolete, enoki, field mushrooms, beefsteak and the aptly named “chicken of the woods.”

As for me, I prefer my daily mycological requirements in a bowl of steaming black-trumpet risotto, but mushroom powders and extracts are found in the pharmacy if you’re looking to mainline the health benefits of miatake or shiitake. I have yet to see a product in toiletries that makes a mushroom claim, but I must believe the discarded stems from shiitake would make one heck of a loofa.

Exactly what are the reasons behind this explosion of the once lowly mushroom? How do mushrooms grow? How many varieties are readily available and, more importantly, how did something that all of us picked out of our food as children become so danged good to us as adults? (While I’m at it perhaps I can analyze the strange mushroom references in Alice in Wonderland, as well.) Before we can contemplate these questions, we must first understand just what defines these fungi.

What is a mushroom?Searching through books and articles, I was hard-pressed to find an explanation of what a mushroom is without being told what a mushroom is not. For instance, according to many authors of the culinary persuasion, a toadstool is not a mushroom. Over the years, the word “toadstool” has taken on the connotation of nonedible or poisonous mushrooms. Despite this, most avid mushroom aficionados understand that a mushroom and toadstool are one and the same, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the word toadstool pop up on a progressive restaurant’s menu, if it hasn’t already. However, to locate an accurate definition, I looked to the scientists of mushroom world.

Mycologists, or mushroom biologists, consider “mushroom” to be the term that describes the reproductive structure or the fruiting body of a fungus. However, the term can also mean any fungus that produces a fleshy fruiting body (that is one that has substance). By this definition, not all fungi qualify as mushrooms. Athlete’s-foot fungus, bread molds, water molds, yeasts and mildews are examples of fungi that do not form fleshy fruiting bodies. Are we clear? No? Imagine a mushroom as the fruit of a very extensive underground tree. Got it? Good. Now try to expunge the athlete’s-foot reference from your mind.

Wild versus cultivatedBefore mushrooms became the beautiful eight-headed monster with groovy clothes that it is today, our choices were limited to either cultivated white mushrooms or foraged wild mushrooms. Since the cultivated boom of the mid-80s, some of these varieties — known as “exotics” to the FDA — are so flavorful that consumers have begun to think of them as wild. Most of you have ordered a “wild mushroom” dish in a restaurant and received shiitake and oyster mushrooms, which are cultivated. Frankly, I can’t blame chefs or product developers who, in the past, have used this technique to sell these two mushrooms on their menus and in their products. Most consumers like (or at least will experiment with) a wild mushroom, but an oyster mushroom?

Shiitake, oyster, enoki, cremini and portobello mushrooms were the first exotic cultivated mushrooms to surface in the mid- to late-80s; their popularity has only increased. Today, virtually every state produces mushrooms commercially. Pennsylvania, however, still accounts for over 40% of total U.S. production, and in 1997-1998 the state’s production reached more than 800 million pounds, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Wild mushrooms are the dark and mysterious residents of the cultivated-mushroom world. It is fairly safe to assume most consumers have not gone into the woods foraging for wild mushrooms; they may even say they would never attempt it, for fear of picking the wrong mushroom and dying from touching it. For them to think about eating a wild mushroom, well, forget about it. I say to them that they don’t know what they’re missing. Those of us who have eaten a morel, a chanterelle, or a porcini or bolete rub our bellies and thank them, saying, “Good, more for us!”

A considerable commercial market for fresh wild mushrooms exists in the United States, particularly the morel. The morel is found throughout the country, but proliferates in the upper Midwest.

The cèpe (porcini) is primarily available in the Pacific Northwest, and their process is as grass-roots as you can get. Picked by independents that sell them to a gatherer, the mushrooms are then purchased by a distributor, who eventually sells them to groceries and restaurants. What are not sold fresh (during winter months, for example) are air-dried, and sold to restaurants and retail markets through specialty food distributors.

The dried-morel market is quite interesting and somewhat resembles a futures market, similar to that for Boudreaux wine. Speculators buy based on foragers’ estimations of the upcoming crop, which takes into account things such as history and forest-fire activity. Morels “pop” in greater number after forest fires. (Bet you didn’t know that; I told you the wild-mushroom world was dark and mysterious.)

Some folks cultivate morel mushrooms, but to date, no one has commercially produced anywhere near the volume of standard cultivated mushrooms or, for that matter, the volume of the wild morels, either. Much to the disappointment of most applications people, the morel, although a flavor bomb, is just too expensive to use as an ingredient in a mass-produced product.

It’s also important to note that a few people in America have dedicated their lives to mushrooms, growing small quantities of formerly wild varieties — such as cinnamon cap, or nameko, and pom pom blanc — in controlled environments and providing their creations to fine restaurants worldwide. Props to them for their commitment and keeping us happy in the restaurants. For our purposes though, I am focusing on the wild and cultivated mushrooms that have broader application possibilities and are currently used in commercialized food.

Porcini and bolete mushrooms are a couple of wild varieties used for years in commercial food applications in Europe and Asia. The volume of wild porcini collected in Asia is astounding. What’s even more astounding is the intricate way they are collected and shipped throughout the world.

David Moore, a veteran in the Asian-mushroom market and owner of Woodland Foods Inc., Gurnee, IL (a supplier of numerous mushroom varieties to foodservice and manufacturers), explains: “The collection of porcini mushrooms is done completely by local peasants. There are thousands of pickers who carry their find to hundreds of collection points, who carry it to a hundred buyers, who take the mushrooms to dozens of drying facilities. By the time the mushrooms have reached the marketplace, they have literally gone through hundreds of pairs of hands.” At that point, he says, “They are graded by color and size, and shipped all over the world.”

A company that understands the tolerance — or lack thereof — for foreign material must further process them, however. Consider the gathering process like you would the picking of an agricultural product by hand. “We clean and cut them to customer specifications,” Moore adds.

Options for product developmentThe mushroom category offers a myriad of opportunity when it comes to product development, a result of mushrooms’ less-than-specific savory notes. In fact, one could create a mushroom note using other enhancers that do not contain mushrooms. Yeast extracts and other enhancers help create many mushroom flavors; they provide the roasted savory component associated with cooked mushrooms. However, mushrooms can supply a part of that umami component all of us product developers look for in our savory applications.

The mushroom tools available in the market today include, but may not be limited to:

Fresh. These mushrooms (whole, sliced or diced) are probably the most difficult to work with, mainly due to shelf life. Also, in respect to variety, the options for fresh mushrooms are few and limited strictly to cultivated mushrooms. Variability in quality, cost and availability makes fresh wild-mushroom use difficult.

Also, the processing parameters of most food manufacturers just don’t allow for fresh-mushroom products because handling them is cumbersome and not tremendously cost-effective. (Refrigeration is not always an option for some plants.) Having said this, however, retort soups and sauces, frozen entrées, and sides are good homes for fresh mushrooms, and present perfect applications for the other two heavily cultivated fresh mushrooms: shiitake and portobello. Indeed, some fairly large food companies have put these into sauces and other products; plus, they are found all over in grocery stores.

Canned. For years, fresh-mushroom growers have canned mushrooms and sold them to the pizza industry, among other trades. Whole slices, stems and pieces are the forms typically available. A pouched, sliced mushroom product also is available.

These packaging options are limited typically to cultivated mushrooms. Button mushrooms dominate this category. These are well-suited for the applications previously mentioned with fresh items and are shelf-stable, providing an alternate option for nonrefrigerated production facilities.

Dry. This option is widely used and offers a bit of latitude for product developers. Three varieties — button; cèpe or porcini; and bolete — are used worldwide, and are available in the form of slices, strips, kibble (dice) and powder.

Dry-mushroom flavor is more intense than that of fresh varieties; the smoky, meaty notes — particularly in the porcini and bolete — are phenomenal flavor tools. While I believe that the dry form offers the most flexibility, it’s not without effort. The dried button mushroom, because it is cultivated, is typically double-washed before it is sliced and dried. This washes away the sand and growth medium, eliminating the need for cleaning the mushrooms after rehydration.

With the porcini and bolete, however, it is a different story. Because these mushrooms are gathered from the wild, foreign material — usually in the form of sand and stones — can be, and usually is, present in the finished dried product. Even after a company recleans them, they require careful handling. The best way to deal with the dirt issue is to rehydrate these mushrooms in a water bath and let the sand settle to the bottom. Then, extract the mushrooms from the bath and process them.

It’s best to work closely with your mushroom supplier on this process; the flavor benefits that come with carefully processed porcini and bolete are excellent.

Frozen. A few suppliers offer frozen whole, sliced and diced mushrooms. Typically produced for the foodservice (restaurant) market, operators should take care when using them; it is difficult to clean a frozen mushroom product prior to use.

Flavors, extracts and enhancers. Nearly every savory flavor company has a mushroom flavor. Obviously, flavor provides a great deal of flexibility. Mixing a dried kibble shiitake and fortifying it with a mushroom flavor is a good example of optimizing the texture, as well as the flavor, of the mushroom. Extracts sprayed on carriers, such as maltodextrin, can also deliver good, water-soluble mushroom flavor in soups and sauces, as well as other applications.

Whatever avenue you take with respect to mushrooms, I remember the disrespect given to them in the words of the prim poet Emily Dickinson:Had nature any outcast faceCould she a son condemnHad a nature and IscariotThat mushroom — that is him

Outcast? Iscariot? Hardly. I’m sure Emily never had a bowl of porcini cream soup.

Despite the malignment mushrooms have taken over the years, one thing is clear: the lowly mushroom, once the icky ingredient picked from children’s plates, is quickly becoming a desirable component in all types of food products. As you wander through the aisles of your grocery the next time you go shopping, take a moment to pay homage to this powerful ingredient. Acknowledge its contribution to our search for umami and appreciate its rewards. I, in the meantime, will continue to look for that shiitake-stem loofa.

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