Love the 'shrooms March 14, 2006 - burlingtonfreepress.com
Stepping into the small shed behind the Colchester home of Amir Hebib feels like finding a secret cave in the woods -- or, as a visitor recently observed, like you've been transported into an episode of "The X-Files."
The air is damp and warm with a musky, earthy smell. Your glasses immediately fog up. On wooden and metal racks, under the soft glow of lights, sit rows of big brown blobs and plump black plastic bags, from which sprout hundreds of delicate mushrooms in a subdued palette of buff and gray, deep tan and chocolate.
The atmosphere is so rich and fecund that you imagine, if you stood there long enough, you might start to sprout mushrooms yourself.
The dark-capped shiitakes and the frilled bouquets of oyster mushrooms thrive in humidity, Hebib explains. "The moisture and the temperature are very important," he says, "but there must also be a flow of fresh air and enough light. If there is not enough air or light, they will get too long and have small heads."
The brown blobs, he continues, are made of sawdust and straw to which he then adds shiitake mushroom spores, which arrive on rye or wheat grains shipped overnight from a mushroom spawn distributor. The black plastic bags are filled with a similar growing medium, from which oyster mushrooms emerge out of holes cut in the sides as they would from tree trunks in the wild.
Hebib completed his mushroom house last fall and has built up a small business selling between 50 to 60 pounds of exotic mushrooms weekly to Healthy Living and City Market while still working full-time for Claussen's. "I grow for me, but I have some extras," he says. "I am not a mushroom businessman, I am a mushroom lover."
The shiitakes seem to sell the best, he says, but the range of flavors within the varieties of oysters is also fascinating. He breaks off a pale brown oyster mushroom from one of the bags. It is slightly sweet, with a nutty taste. The silvery-gray variety is beautiful to look at, but its flavor is so delicate it barely whispers. City Market has asked for a mix of colors, he says, "Grey because the color is nice, but the other for taste."
Hebib's 24-foot-by-16-foot building is a long way -- both geographically and size-wise -- from the 400,000 square feet of mushroom houses he managed for nine years in his native Bosnia before leaving with his wife and son in 1996. It was the biggest mushroom farm in Europe, he says proudly, and offers to play a marketing video about his former employer, Agrokomerc, which shipped out 30 tons of mushrooms daily, among with many other agricultural products.
Hebib's four siblings still live in Bosnia and he talks with them every weekend, but he doesn't plan to return. "In Bosnia, happens something crazy," he says sadly. "It's not my Bosnia any more. People don't live any more like they used to live. America is my country now."
While Hebib does appreciate his new home in many ways, he has not been impressed with the food. "I am disappointed about what kinds of foods are available in the market," he says. "There are $2.49 tomatoes at the supermarket, but they have no taste."
One of his goals with the mushrooms, he says, "is to grow more healthy food," and he pulls out a photocopied grid of the therapeutic benefits of different mushroom varieties. Hebib eats them daily in soups and omelets or on pizza. His wife makes a mushroom pastry wrapped in crisp phyllo dough. He goes into the kitchen for a book and roughly translates a Croatian soup recipe that is finished with sour cream and raw egg yolks. "Mushroom soup is best if you mix oysters, shiitakes and portobellos," he recommends.
While others may start their day with cereal or a cup of coffee, Hebib begins each day checking on his mushrooms, and "First thing in the morning," he says, "I eat one shiitake raw." See link to recipes on Living page Contact Melissa Pasanen at mpasanen@aol.com.
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