Food + Drink

"The Truth About Mushrooms"

By Lucy Burningham

Published in Women’s Adventure, September/October 2007

Every time I visit my local farmer’s market, I end up in front of a table piled with wild mushrooms, watching people pick through a spongy mass of gills, caps, and stems. No matter which variety blankets the table—funnel-shaped chanterelles, spongy morels, or tiny tan shitake—a sweet, earthy smell always pulls me even closer. Inevitably, I find myself heading home with a small brown paper bag filled possibilities: a mushroom risotto, stir-fry with glass noodles, creamy soup, or rich stroganoff.

“From a culinary standpoint, there’s nothing quite like mushrooms for flavor and texture,” says Jack Czarnecki, a chef who picks all the mushrooms served at his restaurant, the Joel Palmer House in Dayton, Oregon. “With mushrooms, there are no limits. They work in nearly every cuisine, from French to Chinese.”

Until recently, most Americans considered mushrooms nutritionally neutral—not bad for you, but not good either. “Mushrooms and other white vegetables get a bad rap because of the idea that you should eat colorful vegetables,” says Lisa Tracy, a registered dietician at an outpatient medical facility in central California. “But mushrooms are nutritional even though they lack color.”

Not only are mushrooms fat and cholesterol free, they contain protein and B vitamins, which meatless diets usually lack, as well as vitamin D, a necessity for healthy bones and teeth.

“Mushrooms also deliver riboflavin, niacin, and copper, which help maintain the nervous system and healthy red blood cells,” says Lisa, “as well as selenium, a powerful antioxidant.” And one portobello delivers as much potassium as a banana. Over the past few decades, numerous studies have proven that mushrooms boost the immune system and heal the body; many scientists believe the shiitake and reishi mushrooms can help fight cancer.

Most wild, edible mushrooms usually sprout from the forest floor during the late summer and fall months. But cultivated mushrooms, including the common white button mushroom, Portobello, and crimini (which is actually just a small, immature version of the portobello), fill produce aisle bins year round. And as more people become aware of the culinary and health benefits of mushrooms, farmers are cultivating a broader range of exotic varieties. Look for soft, fluted oyster mushroom, spongy, umbrella-shaped shitake and the long-stemmed, tiny white-capped enoki, which look like bean sprouts.

Make the most of any mushroom

Choose
You want mushrooms with firm surfaces and even coloring. When it comes to the standard white mushroom, look for light colored gills or tight caps that hide the gills entirely. While you’ll be tempted to pass over mushrooms caked with dirt or pine needles, remember, mushrooms grow in the ground. You can easily remove any soil prior to cooking. Buy whole mushrooms instead of sliced for maximum flavor. Since mushrooms bruise easily, treat them gently to ensure they arrive in your kitchen in prime form.

Store
Mushrooms rot quickly once they’ve left the ground and secrete water, their main ingredient, as they begin to decompose. Storing mushrooms in plastic speeds the process and creates slime. Opt for a paper bag (preferably one made of unbleached paper), and if you must buy a pint of mushrooms sealed with plastic wrap, transfer your mushrooms to a closed paper bag when you get home. Refrigerate in the crisper drawer and use within three days.

Clean
Never soak mushrooms in water. “But you can certainly rinse them under running water,” says Jack. “The whole idea of having to use a brush to remove dirt is a myth.” To remove stubborn pieces of dirt, use a small knife. Wait to clean mushrooms until immediately before cooking them.

Cook
Just like chameleons, mushrooms take on the characteristics of their surroundings, from marinades to sautéed butter and garlic. Equally at home in an Asian stir-fry or Italian antipasto, mushrooms can become the main event or a subtle ingredient in many dishes.

Most recipes that feature mushrooms begin with a skillet, medium heat, butter, shallots or onions, and garlic. When you add fresh mushrooms to any hot pan, they will eventually give off liquid (after about five minutes). Those juices make cooking mushrooms somewhat foolproof: they’re hard to burn and will nicely thin sauces and stews. Try grilling mushrooms, too. Marinate portobellos in an oil and vinegar mixture then place the caps directly on a hot grill until tender in the middle—a great burger substitute. Or, slide smaller mushrooms on skewers and grill.

In A Cook’s Book of Mushrooms: With 100 Recipes for Common and Uncommon Varieties (Artisan, 2005), Czarnecki says that in lieu of garlic, he prefers “a fungal holy trinity” of seasonings for fresh mushrooms: small amounts of salt, soy sauce and sugar. Also, he warns against the common misperception that mushrooms need lemon juice. “Acid and mushrooms are at war with each other, as acid tends to decrease the flavor and body of mushrooms,” he says. “Not that adding wine is bad—just be cautious.”

So get creative. Discover your favorite variety and add seasonings to please your own palate.

Go wild
When possible, buy wild mushrooms instead of the cultivated ones. Wild mushrooms are usually organic (no one’s out spraying pesticide in the woods), and buying them supports a community of pickers that spends their days combing the forests for pounds of the delicacies.

Pick your own mushrooms only if you have an experienced mushroom picker along to identify each mushroom you’d like to eat—many toxic mushrooms look almost identical to edible ones. Don’t take chances. Learn more about identification with Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi by David Arora (Ten Speed Press, 1986) or North American Mushrooms: A Field Guide to Edible and Inedible Fungi by Orson K. Miller and Hope Miller (Falcon, 2006).

Raw or cooked?
Most scientists and nutritionists agree: eating raw mushrooms can be dangerous. A majority of mushrooms contain toxins that break down during cooking. And cooked mushrooms provide more nutritional value than raw ones. But never eat a wild mushroom unless it is fully cooked, because chances are good that you’ll get sick. “People don’t die from eating edible wild mushrooms raw,” Czarnecki says, “they just wish they were dead.” Store-bought cultivated white mushrooms are usually safe to eat raw, and are great in salads or with dip.

Fresh or dried?
Though they lack the texture of their fresh counterparts, dried mushrooms can add a fantastic depth of flavor to many dishes. Soak dried mushrooms (the expensive porcini is popular dried) in hot water for about twenty minutes. Use both the rehydrated mushrooms and the flavorful soaking water for cooking.