Shitaki Mushrooms

Hopefully this won't be my last blog post, but if it is then you can probably blame the mushrooms!

Whilst on occasions I might like living dangerously I'm not stupid enough to go harvesting my own wild mushrooms. Picking wild mushrooms when you don't know what you are doing is analogous to playing Russian roulette and my life doesn't need that kind of stress. I do, however, like mushrooms and I do like trying different varieties. I also quite like growing plants that I can eat (chillies being my favorite) so the idea of growing my own mushrooms was too good to pass up. Bryony spotted that one of the plant catalogues she was ordering from sold kits for growing mushrooms so we decided to give them a go.

We currently have three kits on the go (for Button, Oyster and Shitaki) but the first to fruit are the Shitaki Mushrooms. Last night I cooked Woodpigeon pasta which involves wild mushrooms and while I used the jar I had already bought I chopped up three home grown Shitaki mushrooms and used them as well. The taste of the mushrooms was excellent and 24 hours later we are both still alive so I call that a successful experiment. Let's just hope the other kits turn out to be as good.

Mushrooms

Over the years I've owned or used a number of books to help me try and identify fungi that I've come across. Often I've struggled to come to a definite identification and usually felt that the books I've looked at have been lacking in good photos or illustrations.

Take for example this fungi I photographed about 10 feet in the air just outside the churchyard in Kirby Lonsdale.

I couldn't work out what type of fungi it was from the books I had. Eventually after consulting at least two if not more of the fungi books of a friendly blogger I came to the conclusion that it was a porcelain fungus or in Latin Oudemansiella mucida.

During our Honeymoon we took a trip to Dawyck Botanic Garden (more on the garden in later postings). They have a lovely new visitor centre which contains a nature orientated bookshop. Flicking through a book on mushrooms my eye was caught by one of the plates showing a perfect picture of the porcelain fungus -- so close to what I had seen that there was no room for doubt. Of course I now own a copy of said book, Mushrooms by Roger Phillips. I'd certainly recommend anyone who has an interest in mushrooms to buy a copy. For reference here is the photo that caught my eye.

If you want to see more of the photos and to get an idea of the accompanying text then Roger also maintains a very good website devoted to mushrooms.

My Rating: A truly excellent book, the best book on mushrooms I've ever used.