I have the unique opportunity of teaching workshops for continuing education credits as part of my job. While they are usually related to forestry, once in a while I do something out of the box just for something different. I gave our staff survival skills training on one occasion. This time we are going to learn everything we need to grow shiitake mushrooms in the woods.
I already enjoy cooking and eating fresh mushrooms, mostly the boring button mushrooms readily found at the grocery store. Although I have been eating morels from the woods for the last several years. Here’s a great picture of one. I find that morels taste best dipped in corn meal and fried in light oil.
While researching for this staff training, I learned that mushrooms are fungi. We get some of our best food with the help of fungi. Blue cheese and brie are flavored from fungi. Cacao beans must be fermented with fungi to destroy the bitter flavor they have naturally before being processed into chocolate. Yeasts used in beer and bread are a type of fungi. By the way, the alcohol in beer is made from microbial pee. The yeast eats the sugar and pees out alcohol. The holes and texture in bread are made from microbial farts! That is how yeast causes bread to rise.
Getting back to shiitake mushrooms, they are nutty and garlicky and really meaty compared to white mushrooms. You can order the spawn in the form of wooden dowel rods and drive them into holes drilled into an oak log. Corn and beans come from seeds, mushrooms come from spawn or spores. Six months to a year later, you have mushrooms. And a 3 or 4 foot log can produce mushrooms for several years in the right growing conditions.
I already enjoy cooking and eating fresh mushrooms, mostly the boring button mushrooms readily found at the grocery store. Although I have been eating morels from the woods for the last several years. Here’s a great picture of one. I find that morels taste best dipped in corn meal and fried in light oil.
While researching for this staff training, I learned that mushrooms are fungi. We get some of our best food with the help of fungi. Blue cheese and brie are flavored from fungi. Cacao beans must be fermented with fungi to destroy the bitter flavor they have naturally before being processed into chocolate. Yeasts used in beer and bread are a type of fungi. By the way, the alcohol in beer is made from microbial pee. The yeast eats the sugar and pees out alcohol. The holes and texture in bread are made from microbial farts! That is how yeast causes bread to rise.
Getting back to shiitake mushrooms, they are nutty and garlicky and really meaty compared to white mushrooms. You can order the spawn in the form of wooden dowel rods and drive them into holes drilled into an oak log. Corn and beans come from seeds, mushrooms come from spawn or spores. Six months to a year later, you have mushrooms. And a 3 or 4 foot log can produce mushrooms for several years in the right growing conditions.
I am planning on trying to grow some myself, so I’ll post again at some point with pictures and advice. You can read up in the meantime at UK Extension here.
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