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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Wild things
    #7546469 - 10/22/07 11:32 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Wild things
October 23, 2007 - smh.com.au

It was only 30 years ago that buying mushrooms meant a meagre choice between tight little buttons and the marginally more flavoursome open caps. Slowly, there have been additions such as shiitake, enoki, shimeji, swiss browns and chestnut mushrooms. These have been cultivated for many years but the newly arrived wood blewit has been domesticated only recently.

It looks like no other mushroom. Blewit is an old English form of the word "blue" and perfectly describes the lilac-blue colour often seen on the base and stem of small- to medium-sized examples of this handsome mushroom.

In England and Scotland, wood blewits are found around hedgerows, country gardens near compost heaps and deciduous woodland where the soil is rich with humus. Wild wood blewits have been sold at English markets since the 18th century.

Justin North, chef-owner of Becasse restaurant, remembers using them when he was training in English and French restaurants and recalls, "They smelt gorgeous, with an intensity of flavour."

Dr Percy Wong, adjunct associate professor at University of Western Sydney and honorary associate, University of Sydney as well as a member of the Sydney Fungal Studies Group, has been gathering wood blewits in the wild for some years, mostly in pine forests around Orange and Cowra. They are not native to Australia and he thinks the spores may have arrived with imported stock feed.

Two years ago, he "captured the organism", which simply means he isolated a culture from the wild mushroom. He then grew a few batches to make sure they would take. To grow the blewits in commercial quantities, the small amount of culture was sent to a spawn maker to multiply and then to mushroom farmer John Foster at Vineyard, near Windsor.

After 12 months, Foster and his son, Toby, have reached a weekly production of between 30 and 50 kilograms. Most go to top restaurants in Sydney and some in Melbourne but, if there is demand from customers, shops will sell them. I asked my local greengrocer to get some in and he was only too happy to oblige. Foster has appointed Australia's largest mushroom wholesaler, Lemdell at the Sydney Markets, as agent for the new mushroom.

The response from chefs has been mixed. North likes their perfume but remembers the wild European wood blewits having more flavour.

However, when Wong took some of the first cultivated fungi to Vulcan's at Blackheath, chef Phillip Searle pronounced them as good as those he'd gathered in the wild.

At Quay Restaurant, chef Peter Gilmore likes them a lot, especially their "solid, meaty texture and strength of flavour, almost like a wild mushroom". He prepares a ragout with blewits, shiitake, enoki and swiss browns to go with poached beef fillet. He also suggests simply slicing them, sauteing with butter, garlic and spinach, and then serving on top of soft polenta.

At Sean's Panaroma, chef Sean Moran sautees sliced blewits with eschalots and duck liver.

He likes the fact they are grown locally but says he needs to work with them a little more to fully appreciate their qualities.

Foster has probably cooked the mushrooms more often than most and says the texture is beautiful. "They are a little bit more firm and chewy," he says. "The blewit has got a higher percentage of dry matter. When you fry them you don't get as much water in the pan."

Meanwhile, Wong stresses that the blewit is not a salad mushroom and should be cooked.

Blewits are a little more expensive than other exotic cultivated mushrooms because they take up to three times as long to grow but he believes that, as they adapt to cultivation, growing time will shorten and their price will drop.


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Offline2FiNiTe
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Registered: 06/12/06
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Re: Wild things [Re: veggie]
    #7549560 - 10/22/07 11:19 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Good find Veggie! Very interesting article. I'm actually trying to start an edible mushroom spore bank, which hopefully will lead to commercial growing as well as spore distribution. I'm defiantly going to look into adding this to my list.


--------------------
"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living."

General Omar N. Bradley


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