Mushrooms and me
As it was for many children, my brother and I were made to eat whatever was placed in front of us. If we refused, the very same dish was offered for our next meal, and we got nothing new to eat until it was all gone. I developed the technique of swallowing whole mouthfuls of foods I could not otherwise get down. Top of my dreaded list? Slimy mushrooms and mushy eggplant.
Then one day, I met some other mushrooms. The elegant enoki introduced me to a subtler mushroom flavour in Thai and Japanese cuisine. The oyster introduced me to a delicate yet distinctly mushroomy taste and a chewier texture. The shitaki revealed an almost meaty texture. But those button mushrooms? I still steered clear of them. Even as an adult, I could not abide their slimy texture and disgusting taste.
And then the masterful Julia Child explained to me what was with all those slimy mushrooms: they were cooked all wrong. In a note to her Boeuf Bourguignon recipe on how to sauté mushrooms, Child details the three keys to success: hot butter, dry mushrooms and lots and lots of space. She writes: “If you sauté too many of them at once they steam rather than fry; their juices escape and they do not brown” (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 1961; 2009, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 513). Given space, mushrooms caramelize and develop all those astounding nutty and woodsy notes.
Now I am a true fan. I love pickling them and charring them and roasting them and sautéing them. And this is a good thing because the star of the upcoming Future Food Salons is the kingdom of fungi including all the amazing varieties of mushroom, as well as yeasts, smuts and molds. I can’t wait to see what chefs Cookie Martinez and Felix Castro create for Voyage to Anthropocene, Future Food Salon 3. Rumour has it that Cookie is researching Colombian family recipes for a fermented mushroomy cocktail. OMG. And I have heard someone is working on a mushroom icecream. Honestly, I can hardly wait.
(As for mushy eggplant, I have always loved baba ganoush but mushy ratatouille? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.)
