News. Mushroom growing technology

Alii mushrooms are best used in stews and braised dishes

Courtesy Hamakua Mushrooms

One of the most popular mushrooms in markets is the alii mushroom, Pleurotus eryngii, also known as the king oyster. The small tan cap of this mushroom rests on a heavy, fleshy white stem that is endearing to chefs and home cooks.

Alii mushrooms in Hawaii come from Hamakua Mushrooms on the Big Island, at a mushroom growing facility in Laupahoehoe. The alii mushroom is just one of several varieties grown there in temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms filled with rows of plastic bottles containing a sterile chipped-wood growing medium. Alii mushrooms grow in clumps and are hand-cut for packaging and shipping.

When you buy alii mushrooms, they should be firm, thick and dry without blemishes. They will keep longer than other oyster varieties, but for best texture and flavor, use them quickly.

Alii mushrooms stand up to all kinds of cooking methods. Use them in stews and braised dishes; they become tender but remain solid. Roast them to crisp their exterior while they remain juicy inside. Saute in a little olive oil and a squeeze of lemon to bring out its sweet, mild flavor and meaty texture. Coat lengthwise slices of the alii mushroom in flour, dip in beaten egg and pan-fry for a delicious treat. These mushrooms hold their shape well with little shrinkage, remain firm and juicy and taste wonderful.

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Hawaii food writer Joan Namkoong offers a weekly tidbit on seasonal products, many of them locally grown. Look for "Fresh Tips" every Wednesday.

Special sections : Mushroom Marketing Sales of sliced surpass whole mushroom sales

As consumers continue their quest for convenience, they’re buying more sliced mushrooms than ever, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based Mushroom Council’s 2009 Best Practices study.

Sliced mushroom sales, which are growing faster than sales of whole mushrooms, were up 0.4%, and there were 2.2% more pounds of white varieties sold during the year period ending Nov. 7, and up 3% in dollars and 4.5% in pounds for brown varieties, the council reported.

The Mushroom Council recommends that sliced mushrooms account for 50% of retailers’ mushroom displays.

Bob Besix, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Country Fresh Mushroom Co., Avondale, Pa., confirmed that the sliced mushroom category has grown over the years.

“I think it has become a convenient item, not only at retail, but at foodservice, also,” he said.

He pointed out that restaurant owners can save money on labor by ordering pre-sliced mushrooms.

Country Fresh sells mostly 8-ounce packages but also offers a 12-ounce pack and added a 6-ounce package about a year ago.

For foodservice, the company has 3-, 5- and 10-pound packs and a package of two 5-pound plastic pails.

Country Fresh offers sliced white and brown mushrooms and also has a thicker steak cut.

Highline Mushrooms, Leamington, Ontario, has been offering sliced mushrooms for more than two decades and probably was the first grower-shipper in Canada to offer them, said Jean Chauvin, sales and distribution manager.

The company launched a washed, retail sliced pack in 2004 that has been performing very well, he said.

The 8-ounce package is the most popular, but Highline also offers a 1-pound and 1.5-pound package.

Highline also has added blends that include white, brown and exotic mushrooms.

“These blends are a great way to introduce consumers to other varieties as well as allow them to pick up one ready-to-use package and make a gourmet meal,” Chauvin said.

Chauvin said 18% of Highline sales are sliced.

Besides sliced mushrooms, Modern Mushroom Farms, Avondale, Pa., offers six flavors of stuffed mushrooms, said Greg Sagan, senior vice president of sales and marketing.

“Our stuffed line continues to grow in both the foodservice and retail sectors,” he said.

Stuffed mushrooms are available for retail in four-count, 8-ounce packages and for foodservice in 20- or 40-count packs.

When Monterey Mushrooms Inc., Watsonville, Calif., launched its sliced mushroom program more than 25 years ago, the company offered only sliced white mushrooms for foodservice, said vice president Joe Caldwell.

In the late 1990s, most pizza chains switched to fresh white or brown mushrooms, and now sliced mushrooms are extremely popular at retail, as well.

“There are more sliced mushrooms sold than whole mushrooms now,” he said.

For the past five years, the company has seen major growth in the sliced baby portabella category and has introduced 12- and 16-ounce packages in addition to its 8-ounce size, he said.

Caldwell said he expects to see significant growth in volume of vitamin D-enriched mushrooms that the company sells this year.

Gary Schroeder, director of Dole Mushrooms, Kennett Square, Pa., said he was talking about new sliced products with a customer recently.

“That’s clearly the way everybody’s thinking right now,” he said.

In some stores, 8-ounce packages of sliced white mushrooms outsell whole mushrooms, he said.

“Shippers and processors have been striving to make things more convenient for consumers for the past 40 or 50 years,” Schroeder said, “and I think that trend is still on track.”

Mushrooms Replace Polystyrene

If Eben Bayer has his way the evil that is extruded polystyrene foam , generally referred to as Styrofoam, will be replaced by mushrooms in the next few years. Polystyrene is in everything: packaging materials, coffee cups, takeout containers, insulation, even flotation devices. Made in part from petroleum, polystyrene is basically indestructible and thus non-biodegradable – it is estimated that polystyrene takes up 25% of U.S. Landfill space. To replace polystyrene Bayer, with partner Gavin McIntyre, invented Greensulate a mushroom based insulation that can manufacture itself in 5 days.

How can a product manufacture itself? Greensulate uses fast growing mushroom mycelium to bind agricultural castoffs like seed and corn husks in a mold producing insulation and packaging pieces. The mushroom’s mycelium, which is analogous to a plants root system, uses the energy trapped in the agricultural castoffs to create microscopic webs that spread through organic matter until it is one tightly knit block, corner piece, or whatever shape is desired.

Bayer and McIntyre developed the new packaging material guided by 4 key principals. First, they wanted a product that could be constructed from local open feedstock, so instead of petroleum China could produce insulation from rice by-products, or the US could use corn castoff. Second, the product should self assemble to save energy and reduce the need for large machinery.

Luckily, mycelium grows most effectively in the dark saving the company a buddle on electricity. Third, they wanted a 100% biological yield so that even the waste products were fully incorporated into the final product. Finally, they needed a product made completely of natural polymers so the product could be 100% biodegradable even improving soil if it was thrown into a compost bin. Greensulate meets all these goals and is now available at EcovativeDesign.com

Could Oyster Mushrooms Help Clean the Gulf?

Is it just me, or have the days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion blew a hole into a pipe deep in the Gulf of Mexico, a catastrophe that has since been confirmed the worst oil spill in US history, played out like an extra dark episode of that Amy Poehler and Seth Meyer's "REALLY?" bit on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update?

The "top kill" didn't work? Really? The "junk shot?" (And who is coming up with these names, by the way?) They're pouring thousands of gallons of chemical dispersants into the Gulf to counter the oil spewing forth? Those chemicals are highly toxic and possibly creating plumes, increasing danger to coral reefs and other sealife? The EPA didn't test them until after BP had started using them? It took the president how long to issue an apparently toothless moratorium on off-shore drilling? People are getting haircuts all over the country, for nothing? It took the EPA how long to finally demand BP switch to a less toxic dispersant?

August??? I mean...it's crazy, right?

This might sound crazy too, but maybe mushrooms would be a better deal than these chemical dispersants. That's right, mushrooms. I thought it was crazy, too, the first time I heard about it, about 10 or 15 years ago. In fact, that's the only thing I remember about that first time I heard about it, and I wish I could remember which of my radical friends had mentioned it to me because I would apologize for not having believed it back then and for not having written about it sooner.

In fact, mushrooms were proven back in the late 1990s to be a useful tool in cleaning toxic soil, even soil contaminated by diesel. Watch Paul Stamets, leading mycologist, explain in his TED talk:
Stamets himself does not claim that mushrooms are the way forward -- in a web page created to answer the questions writers like me (and hopefully, some decision-makers as well) are putting to him, he lays out what he knows and what he doesn't. In the former category, the fact that by inoculating diesel-contaminated soil with oyster mushroom spores, he and scientists from Battelle Laboratories managed to cut the toxicity of the soil from 10,000 parts per million to less than 200, over a period of 16 weeks. In the latter category, major questions remain, like how salt water would affect the process.

When it comes to cooking fungi, varieties have 'mushroomed'

Kari Wendt and Joe Landis' Herb 'n Oyster mushroom stand at the Dane County Farmers' Market often attracts gawkers.

Exotic specimens -- Lion's Mane, oyster mushrooms and other varieties -- inspire visions, almost like a Rorschach test. Some people see coral reefs, others see sombreros, umbrellas or UFOs. Each species has its own distinctive appearance and taste.

It wasn't all that long ago that the only mushrooms that made it to most Americans' plates were button mushrooms, uniformly sliced, slimy and straight from a can.

Now, the mushrooming ranks of fungi connoisseurs could be blindfolded, and still identify the unique flavors of each type. Landis compares the taste of Lion's Mane mushrooms to lobster meat, and says oyster mushrooms have a mild, nutty flavor. Combined with other ingredients, mushrooms add an earthiness that nothing else can replicate. But for many people, mushrooms are best on their own, sauteed in a little butter, with maybe a bit of garlic or mild onion.

Interest in mushrooms in the United States has ramped up in recent years as new research suggests that many species offer a cornucopia of health benefits. That's old, even ancient, news in many parts of the world, such as China, where mushrooms have been an important part of traditional medicine for thousands of years. Some studies suggest that some species possess extraordinary properties: Lion's Mane, for instance, is thought to be useful in combating Alzheimer's disease.

The Wendt-Landis' Herb ‘n Oyster stand, which became part of the market last year (see the "At the Market" profile on page C1), is introducing something new this year: grow-your-own mushroom kits. Currently Lion's Mane and blue-grey oyster kits are available, and later this season other types will be available.

Villagers demand mushrooms plan inquiry

CAMPAIGNERS have called on the Government to hold a public inquiry into the multi-million pound expansion of a mushroom farm in North Yorkshire.

Villagers living in Wath near Ripon are intensifying their protest against the development a mile away from their homes by calling on Ministers to set up an inquiry into the expansion plans by Greyfriars, the company behind the scheme.

The firm – which imports 1,000 lorry loads of mushrooms from Poland each year – provoked outrage with plans for a 73,300 sq ft building with 12 growing rooms to produce an extra 150,000lb every week.

Greyfriars submitted three different applications last year for a £4.5m expansion of its existing business, as well as a formal bid to cut down an oak protected by a tree preservation order.

All were refused by Harrogate Borough Council.

The firm has now appealed to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government against one of the rejections to building a mushroom growing facility, and the appeal is expected to be heard in August.

A spokesman for Wath Against Mushrooms (WAM), said: "We are a small village of under 200 residents challenging a pan-European food giant whose plans will create more than 100 additional lorry movements a week on narrow C class country roads.

"We feel strongly that the complexity, size and industrial nature of Greyfriars' development plans mean that a full public inquiry is the right forum, rather than separate appeal hearings.

Mushrooms: The culture club

A taste of the wild: cultivated mushrooms can be just as good as foraged ones

Raymond Blanc grows his own mushrooms. At his Michelin-starred Oxfordshire hotel, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, he has turned a drainage ditch into a "vallee de champignons" where fungi are grown on hardwood logs. The former ditch now provides a steady supply of gourmet mushrooms, including king oyster, for his guests.

The pursuit of the best ingredients leads many chefs to get their hands dirty, yet Blanc is alone in his dedication to DIY fungi production. Antonio Carluccio, a man obsessed with mushrooms from the age of seven, the author of two books on the subject, has never been moved to try a spot of home mycoculture. "Sometimes I use cultivated mushrooms in my cooking," he concedes. "But I always add dried porcini or ceps to give a flavour of the woods."

Adrian Ogden has been running his grow-your-own mushroom business, Gourmet Woodland Mushrooms, for 10 years. He sells kits to amateur enthusiasts and provides supplies and expertise to small-scale commercial growers.

"Home-grown mushrooms can be as good as wild ones," he says. "In this country, shop-bought oyster mushrooms tend to be grown in the dark and they end up pallid and grey. If you grow them yourself, they have a completely different colour, flavour and texture."

Of the 10,000 species of mushroom thought to exist in the world, only 100 have been cultivated and only three are commonly grown in the UK – button, shiitake and oyster. All three grow on dead plant matter and it is this type of fungus which is more amenable to cultivation. Species which grow on living plants – such as chanterelles and truffles – are understandably harder to tame.

Ogden has experimented with many methods of mushroom production. However, his most successful involves growing oysters on paperback books. "The book is eaten away by the mushrooms in front of your eyes," he says. "It only takes seven to 14 days. I got the idea from seeing a photo of mushrooms growing on a mushroom textbook."

Ogden says the growing process can be fraught with difficulty and that some of his best results have been achieved through benign neglect.

The aim of the course is to manage to grow some mycelium – which looks like white fluff – and then persuade it to produce some mushrooms.

This is not all that easy. The problem is that mankind knows very little about how fungi interact with other organisms. As a result, the only reliable way to grow a particular fungus is to isolate it from every other living thing. In other words, you've got to create a sterile environment.

The first step is to make a DIY laboratory out of a plastic storage box. You cut two holes in the front to put your arms through, sterilise the inside with bleach solution and then secure the top with a plastic sheet and rubber bands.

The next step is rather more difficult and this is where you need a strong passion for mushrooms to carry you through. It involves buying or making your own agar for the mycelium to grow on. This is then put into a petri dish and sterilised. The easiest way to sterilise things is to pressure cook them and a household pressure cooker will do.

Once the petri dish is cool, you wash and dry your arms up to your elbows, put on a pair of marigolds straight from the packet and put the petri dish in your DIY lab. Next, take a button, oyster, shiitake or enoki mushroom, swab the top with alcohol, take a sterilised scalpel (you can sterilise it over a flame), peel back the skin of the mushroom, cut out a little bit of the flesh and pop it on your petri dish.

As instructed, I soak the book in warm water, spread the mushroom spawn throughout, put it in a warm place with indirect sunlight and water it every day with a plant mister. In two weeks or so it should produce some gourmet oyster mushrooms and I can't wait.

The only question now is how to eat them. Ogden recommends stir-frying them in vegetable oil with a dash of soy sauce and serving as a gourmet pizza topping or in a pitta bread with a leafy salad. However, I think I might just have them on toast.