Up until recently I’ve not had a very high opinion of mushrooms as an ingredient in most recipes. Admittedly, I don’t have the most sophisticated pallet when it comes to subtle tastes. So when a dish calls for mushrooms, I figured that I might as well substitute them with soggy cardboard.
Following a stint of rainy weather this summer, though, I started to see mushrooms in a new light. Specifically, when we were tromping through some of our favorite hiking trails we started to see an amazing array of mushrooms popping through the undergrowth. This spawned an interest in learning more about them so we could identify them. As we dived into the details, we also found out which were edible… even though we had no intention of popping wild mushrooms into our mouths.
So, in a recent trip to the market we purchased a selection of the wide variety of available mushrooms. We brought them home and sauteed them in a dash of butter for an impromptu taste test. I was pleasantly surprised that each had a noticeably distinct flavor. I’m not enough of a gourmand to really understand how to use them each in a specific dish, but at least now I get how more accomplished cooks might put them to good use.
And next time I encounter a recipe calling for mushrooms, I’m going to bypass the standard tasteless variety and go for something flavorful. Perhaps we’ll even get ambitious enough to find a way to grow them at home.
Tags: mushrooms, wild mushrooms
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