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Although this article is offered at the suggestion of the editor, it did not require much prodding. Given the undeniable difficulty of finding any wine or even food writers willing to give the slightest discourse on the subject of wine with mushrooms, as an inveterate mushroom hunter who is passionate about wine and has had more than his share of adventures in the kitchen, I do not court much in the way of controversy by attempting to show that some wines and some mushrooms really do go well together.
Agaricus arvensis, the horse mushroom, with Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, is just one example of a choice edible wild mushroom made even more delectable by consuming it with wine. The gustatory pleasure of consuming this fine field mushroom can be enhanced by cooking it with wine, or serving it with wine, or both. The earthy and anise-like aromas and flavors of the horse mushroom are complemented by eating it with a well-balanced (meaning good acidity balanced by well-developed fruit flavors and aromas), anise-scented or buttery Chardonnay. If you should prefer red wine or it is simply more appropriate for accompanying ingredients in your meal, a medium-bodied red such as a nicely structured and developed (here, I mean a wine of more than several years of age, which has resolving tannins, increasing complexity, but which retains some acidic tension in its structure), Pinot Noir will likely enhance the deep, earthy flavors of this particular mushroom, whatever the preparation.
Regardless of the particular mushroom you use, the first order of business in matching a wine to the mushroom you are consuming should be to choose a wine made with a grape varietal that you prefer. If you are not partial to wines made with the Pinot Noir grape, by all means select a wine based upon Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah or another red varietal. But do be careful in choosing the type of "cab" or "zin" or whatever you propose to serve.
Since mushrooms, with the prominent exception of Fistulina hepatica, the "beefsteak polypore", are basically low-acid, earthy and subtle delectables, you are more likely to complement the mushroom by avoiding young, forwardly fruity, tannic red wines and prominently oaked, tropically fruity, low-acid white wines. Given the low acid and generally subtle character of mushrooms, you are better served by drinking a white or a red wine which has mellowed a bit over several or more years, but which retains discernible acidity both when first tasted and then swallowed. By choosing a mature over an immature wine and one with a lively and crisp, character rather than a soft, flabby or even sweet taste, you will enhance the mushroom rather than dominate its flavors.
Wine experts frequently mention the critical role of yeasts in the fermentation of wine. I have long felt that wines that are made using naturally occurring wild yeasts on the skins of the grapes are usually a better match for mushroom dishes. A recent study of the plant world confirming that fungi, including mushrooms and yeasts, constitute an independent kingdom separate from plants, may validate my theory of a mushroom-to-mushroom affinity.
Finally, some consideration should be given to the character of the mushroom you are serving, as well as its preparation. While an elegant and refined Chardonnay-based wine might be ideal for the definitively subtle but buttery taste of immature Coprinus comatus, “shaggy mane“, mushrooms simply sweated in a buttered sauté pan, it probably would not show well with a composed salad of tart-tasting Fistulina hepatica slices. On the other hand, the bracing acidity of a good non-vintage champagne works wonders with Fistulina hepatica.
If you're lucky enough to have picked some spicy, more prominently flavored chanterelle mushrooms, consider venturing beyond the typical chardonnay or sauvignon blanc and try pairing them with a more boldly flavored Riesling or Pinot Gris. In contrast, a basic mushroom sauce for a piece of grilled beef is most complemented by a straight forward but maturing Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot.
Lastly, if you should enjoy consuming a particular type of wine with a certain mushroom which contravenes any or all of the foregoing discussion, by all means do not change anything. Since the goal is to "marry" the wine to the mushroom in hand, if you find a particular marriage to your liking, just celebrate the union and avoid dwelling on the suitability of the participants. Bon Appétit!
Jeffrey P. Long
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Not exactly a crisis, but a question mycophagists continually debate: "What is the best?" Well, The Morelist Society has recently released its list of best mushroom* recipes. Judged by the society's culinary committee and acclaimed by those who have tasted them, this sample illustrates the superiority and versatility of this prized mushroom.
Morel Poppers
This is an update of a country standard (battered, fried merkels). Baby black morels are coated
with a thin tempura batter, deep fried, and seasoned with coarse sea salt. Best served with vintage champagne.
Poulet de Bresse aux Morilles
(Bresse chicken with morels). The Roux Brothers New Classic Cuisine.
The sauce is a killer: sautéed, puréed pears, cream, and morels. Substitute poussin, cornish hen or free range chicken for the poulet de Bresse.
Morilles Farcies
(Stuffed Morels). The Natural Cusine of George Blancs
This one is vegetarian. Morels stuffed with a delicate mirepoix and more morels with a port cream sauce.
Fondue de Pointes d'Asperges a l'Asperge
(Warm Asparagus Salad). The Natural Cuisine of George Blancs
The original recipe which calls for black truffle is exquisite, but sautéed black morels are equally suited. Julienned and sliced asparagus are gently warmed in extra virgin olive oil with red wine vinegar, then garnished with morels.
Sauté of Sweetbreads, Morels and Spinach
The Wine Spectator, Dec 31, 1998
This is an original recipe from Don Dao incorporating crispy sweetbreads, black morels, and baby spinach in a veal reduction sauce.
Omlette aux Morilles Champêtre
The idea here is to pick'em and eat'em in the woods.
*The Morelist Society does acknowledge the existence of other culinary fungi, but in a society where one's allegiance is presumed, a list of the best mushroom recipes isobviously exclusive.
Barbara Davis-Long
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By George L. Barron
Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, Canada, 1999
336 pp., U$S 19.95, (CDN 26.95)
(also published as Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada)
This new guide book is the work of an eminent mycologist with extensive academic credentials and honors. Its 5 1/2” x 8 3/8” format makes it a good size for the field. It has very good to excellent photographs. The design is handsome and uses screened photographs as backgrounds for the text in some instances. This is usually a design element that interferes with reading if not executed properly. In this book, it works well. This guide also incorporates some unusual features, such as boxes interspersed through the introductory text with interesting tidbits of information, and colored top borders to identify different sections that effectively help to locate them when using the “reference guide“ section on pages 8-17. This section uses small photographs as a visual key to the different groups of fungi. There are also six other numbered key to genera. I particularly enjoyed the sections on slime molds and sac fungi because it has some unusual species which are intriguing and also beautiful to the eye and, for someone like me whose interest is heavy on mycophagy, often overlooked.
And now that I mentioned mycophagy, I must point out a somewhat disappointing item. On page 130, there is a note on the edibility of bracket fungi that states "For the purposes of this book, all bracket fungi are considered inedible, except for the Chicken of the Woods…" Well that is simply not so. This statement disregards the exceptionally tasty Grifola frondosa, absent from this guide, as well as the species depicted on page 134, Polyporus umbellatus (Grifola umbellata), also a good edible. The Sheep Polypore, Albatrellus ovinus, p. 133, and the Dryad’s Saddle, Polyporus squamosus, p. 145, are indeed edibles. And since Albatrellus are concerned, we should not forget the fungi highly regarded in Northern Italy, Albatrellus pescaprae, an excellent and very tasty species (not listed).
Another point that is a bit confusing is the announced area of coverage: Midwest to New England, yet the map includes states down to West Virginia and Maryland. Which raises a question from an amateur perspective: a common species in our area like Lepiota americana is not included. Is it because it is not found up north? I also wish that the descriptions of the habitats were a bit more specific when dealing with good edibles. Knowing about mycorrhizal relationships will tree species and other field details leads to finding different species. This guide, to a great extent, indicates “on the ground in woods”, not much help! Disregarding my mycophagist’s bias, this guide is a good addition to the amateur library, because its well written and presented technical information as well as its excellent photographic reproductions.
Albert J. Casciero
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We moved to the Charleston, SC area in December 1998. We purchased a home without really seeing the backyard, as it was dark when we viewed the property. All we knew was that it backed to a small fresh water lagoon (referred to by our backyard neighbors as a nice ditch!).
When we moved in, we discovered that the back yard and one side yard was a mostly "natural" area. There are twenty one oak trees, a few loblolly pines, some sassafras, crepe myrtle, and one hickory tree. All the underbrush had been removed. It is not a particularly large yard; 1/3 acre in all. Being avid mushroomers, we wondered if we could possibly have mushrooms in our yard and in the area in general.
Several weeks after moving in, Tim found a red Russula next to an old pine stump. Not much, but we had hopes for more, since any mushroom in December is good news. Sometime in January we were tricked into thinking we had found blewits, Lepista nuda, by a similar lookalike– Cortinarius alboviolaceus. The books are correct in saying they are edible, but not recommended. Our taste buds agreed.
As winter turned into spring, and spring to summer, we began to notice different small mushrooms here and there in the yard and mulched flower beds. We won't go into naming these little brown mushrooms, so as not to show off our extensive taxonomic skills. The truth is: we don't know their names!
The weather was very dry most of the time, so we were relying on our automatic sprinkler system for moisture. Eventually we began to find fungi that we could identify. One day, a few Agaricus appeared. Another day we found our first gilled bolete, Phylloporus rhodoxanthus. Oh, joy - our first edible! This has been our most numerous and consistent edible to date. Several species of russulas, distinguishable by their different colors, appeared often. Several bolete species have made their debut as well. We have eaten a few of them along with some edulis we found nearby on a church property. One day an old man of the woods appeared on one of our woody ferns. His name was Strobilomyces floccopus. Many of his relatives visit at times. On the fourth of July, our across the street neighbors invited us to watch the fireworks with them. Before leaving for the harbor viewing area, they showed us their rear deck and beautiful tidal marsh view. There in the yard below us, only two short flights of stairs away, were some short golden yellow mushrooms growing on the grass. As Judy was saying: "I wonder if..." Tim was casually bouding down the stairs for a closer look at what turned out to be Cantharellus cibarius. Would any of these golden gems ever "visit" our yard, we wondered? About a week later we noticed a single chanterelle in our next door neighbors yard, not ten feet from our property. Finally, after approximately ten days, we greeted our very own golden visitor. All alone he was, but perhaps with more rain, more of his kind will appear. Not all of our visitors have been the agreeable type. Amanita virosa has been spotted several times with cousins A. crocea and A. citrina. Bitter Tylopilus plumboviolaceous and T. felleus have been found also. A lovely blue color has been sporadically supplied by Lactarius indigo. We have also gathered Lactarius hygrophoroides in the yard and surrounding areas.
With all this activity in our yard, along with observations in neighborhood yards, our hopes that South Carolina was favorable for fungi have been fulfilled. One species especially plentiful in many yards is the green spored lepiota, Chlorophyllum molybdites. Up to several dozen of these appear at a time.
MAW member Jon Ellifritz called one evening and told us he had read in a Low Country cookbook that an area park was noted for chanterelles in August and September. Tim found them in early July. Based on this find, we embarked on a bicycle foray to the Frances Marion National Forest in mid-July. There we found about six pounds of C. cibarius, along with many C. cinnabarinus, the cinnabar red chanterelle, and a few Craterellus fallax, the black chanterelle. On that day, we also collected Lactarius corrugis and L. volemus which Judy turned into “rumaki” for dinner. To accompany these, we also had sauteed (get this!) Amanita caesarea. These we found in beautiful egg and recently opened condition. Quite a day of collecting, including the numerous chiggers and tiny, tiny little ticks! We are seriously considering getting the Lyme disease vaccine as there have been a few cases of Lyme disease reported in South Carolina.
We just received a letter inviting us to join the South Carolina Mycological Association on a foray to be held July 24th in a park in Columbia, SC, about 2 hours from our house. This club is based in the western part of the state, but its president just moved to Charleston, so who knows! we may start a local club.
Even though we have signs of promise in South Carolina for great mushrooming, we miss our MAW friends and invite them to join us. Maybe we will take them to our favorite spot: our own backyard!
From the deep South, wishing y’all bountiful harvests,
Tim Geho and Judy Roberts
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On April 10, 1999, MAW presented Special Awards at the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair at Thomas Jefferson Middle School/Community Center in Arlington, Virginia.
The purposes of Science and Engineering Fairs are threefold: to stimulate in young people an active interest in science and engineering; to provide an educational experience through being exposed to the judges and to the public; and to give public recognition to talented students for the work that they have done.
This year, Dan de Souza assisted me and we selected two projects as award winners from a field of three that were related to mycology.
First Prize for a mycological project, $100 cash, a T-shirt and a Certificate of Excellence, was awarded to the 10th grader Lisa McGinnis, for the project Effect of B1 on the Cordycepin Sensitivity in Lab Yeast. Lisa attends Oakton High School, in Oakton, Virginia. She developed an experiment to grow yeast cultures that can substitute for HIV cultures in the effectiveness testing of anti-HIV drugs, thus improving the safety of this drug testing. Last year Lisa was MAW’s Honorable Mention award winner.
This year's Honorable Mention Certificate of Achievement for a mycological project and t-shirt were presented to Gregory Payne a Senior at Potomac Falls High School in Loudoun County, VA. Gregory evaluated Maximizing the Growth Rate of Rhizopus stolonifer on Lactose-modified Czapek's Media. He explained clearly that lactose can encourage or inhibit common bread mold growth, depending on lactose concentration. Higher lactose concentrations were found to inhibit the mold. He believes that further research could establish lactose as a food preservative or could show that lactose could be used in soils to retard mold growth without changing the pH of the soil or severely affecting the environment.
The other mycological topic was Fungal Findings: The Effect of Temperature, Nutrient, and Preservation on the Activity Level of Yeast.
Judging criteria included: creative ability, scientific thought or engineering goals, thoroughness, skill, clarity of presentation, and teamwork.
Both Dan and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience were challenged in our abilities, scientific thought, thoroughness and skill in understanding the projects. We plan to participate again next year and would welcome another MAW member or two to assist. The fair will again be held in mid-April and organization of judges will be in February. Please let me know if you would like to join us and participate in this worthwhile educational and fun event. A continental breakfast and a sandwich and salad bar lunch are provided for the judges.
Bruce Boyer
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Her full name was Ruth Visher Smalley Frechtman, although most of us knew her as Ruth or Mrs. Frechtman.
A long standing member of MAW, Ruth died of cancer on July 6, 1999, at the age of 83. She was born in Moorehead, Minnesota, and was a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Indiana, where she also received a Master’s degree in Behavioral Psychology and a Doctorate in Law.
She had varied and interesting life experiences. At the university, Ruth was assistant to the well known behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner. Later on, she taughtbpoetry at the Juilliard School in Nest York City. Ruth was also a chef at the Heritage restaurant in Germantown, N.Y.
In the 1950s, Ruth worked for civil rights lawyer Moms L. Ernst. She then joined the National Labor Relations Board late in the '50s from where she retired in 1984. Ruth was a member of the Federal Bar Association and thebOrder of the Coif.
We share her loss with her husband of 21 years, Julian Frechtman, and extend to him our deeply felt condolences.
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PAST: Wild Foods Tasting: Really WILD!
Over 45 members, old and new, attended MAW's Wild Foods Tasting on Tuesday, May 5, 1999. Although the morel season wasn't in full swing during the preceding weekend's Moray ‘99, the Tasting definitely brought out some wild dishes! Venison with Shiitake and Dark Beer (a stew), Dove Giblets with Morels & Roasted Red Peppers, Venison & Ramps, Green Empress (Chinese style poke, chickweed and mustard greens), Sorrel Porcini Vichysoisse, Deer Camp Chili, Creamed Pasta, Spinach Mushroom Quiche, Unagi No Kabayaki Donbri (that's Japanese grilled eel on rice), Field Mushroom & Portobello Lasagne,Shiitake and Venison Ravioli, Shiitake Chicago, Three Mushroom-Three Onion Soup, and Spinach Mushroom Quiche to name but a few.
Waldemar Poppe generously donated a shiitake log (ready to harvest), a beautiful bouganvilla (in bloom), and another blooming plant from his collection for the awards! You may recall that there weren't supposed to be any awards this time, but try telling that to Waldemar!
The winners chosen by the attendees were:
Bruce Boyer (Dove Giblets with Morels and Roasted Red Peppers)
Bonnie Johnson (Spinach Mushroom Quiche) and
Ilona Conolly (Three Mushroom - Three Onion Soup).
Many thanks to the many volunteers without whose effort events such as this would not be possible: Robert and Claudia Kilmer, Bruce Boyer, Karin Adams, Gordon Callahan, Judith Reiter, Bob Hicks, Hilde and Dan de Souza. And thanks to those of you who didn't formally volunteer but helped out anyway! A good time appears to have been had by all.
FUTURE: Fall Mushroom Tasting
Tuesday, October 5, 1999
DRY, PARCHED, DESICCATED, SCORCHED. Do these terms describe your local mushroom hunting habitat?
You can probably forget about wild mushroom hunting for now, but that doesn't mean mushrooms aren't readily available. Local supermarkets, specialty stores and our own Paul Goland stock fresh and dried cultivated and wild mushrooms. So, why not join us for the Fall Mushroom Tasting on Tuesday, October 5, 1999 beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the basement meeting room of the Kensington Park Library located at 4201 Knowles Avenue in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Since it is too hot and dry for wild mushroom hunting, why not relax indoors and peruse your cookbooks for a mushroom recipe. Impress us with your favorite dish or try out a new recipe. Keep in mind that the success of MAW and events such as this depends on ALL of you.
To insure the success of this event, please observe the following rules:
Please consider volunteering for one of the following: wild mushroom identification, registration desk, set up and decoration, beverage service and clean up. Members who volunteer in advance need not bring a dish and will only be charged $5.00. To reserve a stove or to volunteer, call Ilona Conolly by Monday, October 4 at (703) 714-2887 (work) or (703) 243-2133 (home).
I look forward to seeing you there!
Ilona Conolly
To buy mushrooms from Paul Goland call him at: Hardscrabble Enterprises, 304.358.2921
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Remember that the location of our monthly meetings has changed. Until August 2000, MAW meets on the first Tuesday of every month at the Kensington Park Library, 4201 Knowles Avenue, Kensigton, MD 20895, with exception of September and December 1999 and March 2000 when it will meet at the Davis Library, 6400 Democracy Blvd., Bethesda, MD 20817. Consult our homepage for a map and directions on how to reach each branch by car or public transportation.
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