On to Wales The magic of mushrooms

Date Published:

23/05/2008

"Make room for the mushroom" went the old 1980s advert featuring a marching battalion of fungus. So I followed the advice. The Big British Food Map was looking a little bare for mid Wales, so I decided to stay put for a week and learn more about the mushroom

Consider for a moment then the mighty 'shroom; always second fiddle to some other ingredient like chicken or lobbed in as an also ran, it's rarely allowed centre stage on the plate. What's more, out of the hundreds of edible species on the planet what does your local supermarket or greengrocer sell? Ten to one it's bog standard field mushrooms.

My hosts for the week are Richard and Joy Edwards who run humungus-fungus.co.uk in the shadow of the Black Mountain, Wales. They're part of a worldwide scheme called WWOOF, which stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms. In return for a few hours labour you're provided with bed and board. What you get out of it is experience working on a farm and the chance to learn more about food production.

Over the past seven years Richard and Joy have developed and refined a technique for growing mushrooms. They started out selling the mushrooms commercially, but soon found there was more interest in their production technique. They now help set up others interested in growing mushrooms.

Big in Japan

"I think mushrooms can be an answer to a lot of society's problems," says Richard. "They're a great food source, they eat sewage and they have medicinal uses." The shiitake for example is revered in the Far East for its therapeutic properties.

In 2005 Richard helped Raymond Blanc set up his grandly titled ‘Valley aux champignons’ to supply his restaurant – Le Manoir – with fresh shiitake and oyster mushrooms. Richard tells me more fungi thoughts.

"The British haven't had mushrooms in our culture. Our children are taught not to play in woods; they're seen as dark scary places. In Italy kids are taken into the woods at an early age, and encouraged to hunt mushrooms." He goes on: "I've eaten mushrooms that are fantastic, real culinary orgasms."

Production Process

But just how do you grow mushrooms? In fact, what are mushrooms? Richard explains: "Mushrooms are the fruit of a substance called mycelium, they're only produced when the organism is reproducing." He shows me how he gets it to that stage. I'm lead through the farm building to an immaculate laboratory complete with microscope and conical flasks.

In here a small amount of mycelium spore is placed on agar jelly in a petri dish, sealed and allowed to grow. After two to three weeks the agar jelly is cut into eight pieces and dropped in eight bags of wet organic grain.

After three weeks the mycelium has taken hold. Each bag is divided into 12 more bags allowed to grow, then divided again. When needed, the bags are shaken up, opened and placed in a cool room with a high humidity. The mycelium thinks all hell's broken loose and in a quest for survival shoots up dozens of mushrooms, which you harvest after a week or so - simple and the whole process takes just 20 weeks.

It's a fascinating process, and one Richard is keen to share with anyone who's interested. One such person is Gary Whitley of Maesyffin Mushrooms. Richard and I drive over to see Gary. He produces loads of tiny tasty shiitake - some of which he dries while others he uses to make a mushroom pate - in an outhouse no bigger than your average garage.

Despite a week here I feel I'm only just beginning to get to grips with the quiet, warm, fascinating world of the mushroom.