Many Mushrooms
My father-in-law took a course in mushroom identification. He would go out into the field with his guidebook looking for specimens. Yet much as he liked to eat mushrooms, I don’t think he ever picked any in the wild. He was a smart man. Wild mushrooms can be dangerous to eat. Some have toxins that can cause digestive or respiratory problems that are uncomfortable, while others are downright life-threatening. But the right kind of mushroom (and there are many varieties to choose from) is delicious.
Which brings me to agaricus, a common whitish field mushroom. Button mushrooms fall into this category. I saw some mushrooms that looked sort of like golf balls. They grow on lawns all around my house. Tempting as it was to pick and cook, I limited my appreciation to the visual. Then I went out to my favorite market and bought a carton of safely farmed produce that I can enjoy without worry.
I tend to be casual when I cook and mushrooms are so easy to work with, they make perfect dishes. I like to sauté crimini mushrooms in a little olive oil with chopped basil, garlic, and pine nuts, then sprinkle on a little grated cheese, serve them over pasta and … yum.
Portobello mushrooms are great stuffed with almost anything — rice, ground turkey or beef, tofu, squash, spinach — drizzle a little sauce of your choice over the top and bake. Shitaki mushrooms lend themselves beautifully to dishes with Asian spices. If you want a more precise way to prepare them and favor a world view of mushroom dishes, take a look here:
If anyone has a favorite mushroom dish, please feel free to share. We mushroom lovers will be delighted. For some mushroom varieties and photos:
And for a very basic description of field mushrooms: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/woods/21NN.html
Editor’s Note: When we first moved to California in the 1960s a friend gifted us with A Field Guide to Mushrooms: North America. See the Peterson Field Guide above. That gift revealed that mushroom hunting is an extremely popular hobby in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as in the northwestern part of the country. We have recently learned that the Puget Sound Mycological Society is one of the largest such societies in the United States.
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