I’ve gained and lost, wavered and eschewed, and gone all starry-eyed again when it comes to an appetite for mushrooms in my life. Growing up, they hold one of my earliest food memories: the early 80’s food processor whirring, and stuffing scooped-out caps with cheesy, savoury breadcrumb goodness with my mom. They were a very “grown up” food that I not only helped make - I actually liked.
Regrettably - in that oft retrospect - all things mushroom suddenly become practically off-limits in my life after one fateful day, my late mother had a severe allergic reaction at a restaurant. After that, mushrooms left the kitchen. They just weren’t a thing I considered eating for a long time, which wasn’t so far-fetched when you’re a young vegetarian in the making who thought so many “normal” offerings were gross anyway (for example, hot dogs, ugh).
During my college years, as an official vegetarian-and-then-vegan, I began to play catch-up. Mushrooms re-entered by life in two ways: as part of vegetable-packed dishes at the Buddhist and Kosher Chinese vegetarian restaurants I started frequenting in Boston and NYC, and as the affordable, cutely-named baby bella variety that I learned to somewhat decently sauté with surely too much Earth Balance, or better yet, Soy Garden (iykyk). I was cooking and eating mushrooms! How adult-ish?
I won’t say I dug them yet, but I began to recognize mushrooms as food again, and certainly became more & more acquainted with portobellos as a default veggie burger option, especially as someone who had little to NO interest in Boca burgers. I still stand by that.
I’m talking the good, the meh, the occasionally charred & smokey & hit-the-spot, but just as often under-cooked. Rubbery. Unappetizing. It was a roll of the dice. Let’s just say I’ve had a lot of marinated portabello burgers and fries on depressing substitute buns (because the buttered brioche on the menu was duh, not vegan) at places like The Cheesecake Factory back when I was traveling a lot for work in my twenties. No doubt, I usually ate more of the fries.
It was around then, when I was openly back on the ‘shrooms and learning to actually cook (which could lead to a side diatribe about George Foreman grills, so let’s save that for another day), I did what so many do to reconnect with their own pasts & familiar flavors: I returned to stuffed mushrooms. This reignited fondness led to the first recipe that I ever…just…made…up. I got to work after a flattering request from a much-loved, but no longer running vegan magazine that had at that point, just stopped its print run and switched to digital, and then became a long-running storefront and clothing clothing. What times - and btw, these were the ye olde (okay, early) food b-l-o-g days before I stepped far more behind-the-scenes with the whole “talking about food on the internet” thing - to really set the stage. : )
And anywhoo, in related news of blasts from the past and commas, a few months ago I was browsing the Fairbanks library’s book sale before its current renovation, and I happened upon a copy of a real live cookbook – Ripe from Around Here by Jae Steele - that gave a shout-out to my red wine and hazelnut-stuffed mushroom recipe. The very one. Which, of course, twentysomething jess thought was so fancypants to begin with. And while I’m reminiscing, here’s another gem: I was once asked to make these on the spot, by surprise, at a remote wedding. How could I refuse? All things considered, I remain amused, humbled, amused again, and lamenting my own surprise allergy that arose around that time: treenuts. Ciao to that recipe.
Keep with me here. By this point in eating-mushrooms-again we’re in the mid-aughts (00’s). I’m well into my farmers market routine in the Pacific Northwest, and that definitely includes all things foraged & cultivated. Oh, the abundance down there. We’re talking chanterelles, porcini, lion’s mane, chestnuts, cauliflower, more chanterelles, lobsters, the white truffles (that I once buried in salt I may still have…), dude, the morelsssss. Even the mere shiitakes!
Clearly, I was a regular visitor to the “mushroom guy” (once more, iykyk) at the weekly, thrilling-ly year-round farmers market at People’s Food Co-op. This was a short walk from my longtime abode in Southeast Portland, and I became OBSESSED with maitakes, aka “hen of the woods”. The cast iron sear you could get on those things! What a tasty ‘shroom. I remember this one dinner at the late Harvest at the Bindery that served this amazingly tangy, tingly, spicy, saucey, totally cooked down, BBQ maitake dish a la shredded pork, and gosh, what a still-flavorful food memory. Sigh, another reminder to support the restaurants you dig while they’re around.
Circling back to the present day in Alaska, I’m back on the ‘shrooms after taking a pause in my later Portland years. I wouldn’t say I had sworn them off, per se, but I was just so much more captivated by other things, such as bitter greens and the rise of chickpea & lentil-based tempeh. That, and the whole eyeball-texture thing that can happen when mushrooms are not cooked well. You can wind up with either succulent, umami excellence vs. uh, squish.
TIP: Use a hot cast iron and start dry! Let the ‘shrooms do their own thing.
These days my eye for wild edibles mixed with the import/export reality of shopping at Costco on our monthly-ish grocery runs has led to reconsidering cultivated creminis, and during the precious summer months, the foraged and cultivated alike at the farmers market. I would tell you that we paid an almost laughably Brooklyn-esque amount for morels in Fairbanks, but I kid. The price was reasonable for what they are, how they’re acquired, where they’re sold (renting a stall at the market), and the mud & adventure & swarms of mosquitoes one must usually fend off to find them!
It’s now late June, and the big Alaska summer rains are upon us.
The forest is once again greener. Purple, pink, yellow and blue. The funghi shall follow.
At the same time as I’m hooked into the anticipation of all the “wild” studying & foraging ahead, I look around the kitchen, into the fridge, and think, “I need to cook those creminis”. We’d been coming off a recent stint of buying packs of mass-cultivated ‘shrooms again, which really means pizza, burgers, and something with mashed potatoes in our house.
You know how it goes: there was a sale, we bought another pack, and at least one of us (not me), was already borderline blasé by this point. Plus, this timing of “oops, mushrooms” was just ahead of a recent move within our own wee neighborhood, which was
A) all the more reason to clean out the fridge
B) another story for another day
and
C) exhausting, as it is [was, phew!] !!
All this leads me to sharing another rustic veg + pasta affair, and the realization that while I tend to gravitate to fresh-pasta making to highlight the freshest summer bounty, this case was quite the contrast.
A taste (ba da bum) of the foraging and fresh herbs to come. Soon enough.
A simple + straightforward recipe with bonus smoked salt to jazz up those almost-forgotten mushrooms from the fridge. I went all fancypants (er, leggings) again with the fresh pasta here but it’s definitely not necessary. Opt for 8 oz. dried pasta if not!
The following dish is lightly adapted from this one on Inspiredtate.net.
one (former) last porch shot
More ‘shrooms
So, do you like mushrooms?
Are there foods you’ve come back around on?
References + Relevant Links:
All the Rain Promises and More by David Arora {utterly recommended for those looking to get into foraging ‘shrooms in North America}
The Bolete Filter: Triage (A Synoptic Key) for North American Boletes {such a cool pictorial resource}
Easy Mushroom Pasta, Inspired Taste {adapted above}
Microstoma protractum, Ultimate Mushroom {see the little orange cups at the top}
Mushroom Bacon (4 Ways), Oh My Veggie {I haven’t used this one, but it’s close enough}
Ripe from Around Here by Jae Steele
Vegan Oyster Mushroom Birria Tacos, Mexican Made Meatless {great recipe, fab recipe archive!}
Wow Jess, I didn’t know about your childhood mushroom trauma. I’m surprised/impressed you can eat them at all. I’ve always loved mushrooms, one thing I used to love making before the tree nut allergy decided to visit our own house was morels stuffed with sun-dried tomato cashew cheese, also inspired by your old blog. So much nostalgia for vegan things past in the post, whew!
This was a joy to read! Happy for you as you get back into mushrooms and can't wait to click on more of those links. Mushrooms are one of those topics I'm always yearning to learn more about.