CULINARY TALES

"How can we be objective in such matters? What should be our standard? My wife used to say that it is worth the trouble of picking and cleaning wild mushrooms only if they are at least as flavorful as the white mushroom found in stores (Agaricus bisporus). The trouble is that the bisporus flavor, while widespread among mushrooms, is only one of many mushroom tastes, and this makes comparisons difficult. Mushrooms may have the pungency of truffles, the spicy aroma of matsutake, and the seafood-like taste of oyster mushrooms. In texture, they can be crunchy, glutinous, chewy, or slightly stringy (like white chicken meat)..."

"Mushrooms are usually cooked with butter or oil or are incorporated into complex recipes, and they rarely stand alone as the main nutritional contribution of a meal. For the record, most mushrooms are 85-95 percent water by weight and have a protein content similar to that of spinach or potatoes. They are a pretty good source of minerals as well as niacin, riboflavin, and other B vitamins. Fresh mushrooms provide about twenty calories per cup with nearly no fats or cholesterol. Most wild and cultivated mushrooms readily absorb the fat they are cooked in, though, so if they are to be used as a base for low-calories dishes they should not be sauteed but simmered in broths or cooked in soups. No matter, one cannot be unhappy when eating mushrooms, to paraphrase an old Italian saying about eating pasta."

"The life of a mushroom lover is rich in contrasts. I remember a dinner party I gave one fall evening for eight close friends. It was as elegant as I could make it: I used my best linen, china, and silver, and the dining room was lit by canlelight. The soup was made with black trumpets and oyster mushrooms I had collected a few days before. Inevitably, the conversation turned to wild mushroom hunting. My skills were affirmed and my bonds with nature envied. Those I had not yet taken on a mushroom hunt extracted the promise that I would do so soon. The main dish was a roasted chicken bedecked with porcini and adorned with a colorful spray of vegetables. My thoughts wandered. I remembered walking through the woods a few days before, dressed in faded blue jeans and an old jacket, looking unkempt and rustic. I mused about the contrast between my woodsy persona and the elegance with which we were surrounded that night. I felt that the natural environment was happily encroaching upon the formal dining room. Obviously, life with mushrooms offers a lot of latitude in style."

"If you are told that a dish on the menu of a fancy restaurant has 'wild mushrooms' in it, you can be pretty sure that the mushrooms were cultivated. The species likely to be served are shiitake, portobellos, or perhaps oyster mushrooms. These are wild only in the sense that anything other than the store-bought white button is a 'wild' mushroom. In time, it is possible that the term 'wild mushrooms' will be restored to its original meaning and include only such kinds as boletes and chanterelles that indeed cannot yet be cultivated."