Fungus Among Us
St. Charles Avenue Magazine Food Column, April, 2004
By Michael Depp

Ask some people about their first experience with mushrooms and you might find yourself regaled with stories of tie-dyed, psychotropic dream sequences laced with bright flashes of color and a soundtrack by Jefferson Airplane. My own story is far more innocent, when, at 10-years-old and enrolled in a Saturday class at the Brookhaven Free School, I'd take long morning hikes through fields, marshes and meadows foraging and sketching, amazed to find so much intact wilderness in proximity to my suburban home.

Mushrooms were a fascination for me back then, villainous little things to be poked at with my pencil tip after searching them out underneath rotting logs and shady tree trunks. They were bulbous, misbehaving clusters of natural architecture, a Gaudiesque landscape for supernatural atomies to inhabit. And there was no way in hell anyone was going to induce me to eat one.

Flash forward to the present and mushrooms continue to enthrall me, only now for their incredible depth of flavor and variety of texture, their very meatiness. The prospect of eating truffles or black morels in a dish ratchets up my anticipation exponentially. And locally, the mushrooms available on the market have expanded dramatically, both in terms of variety and freshness. As it turns out, we're living in a kind of mushroom mecca with some of the nation's most flavorful and sought-after varieties flourishing among us.

As it turns out, there are some 3,000-5,000 mushroom varieties growing throughout the Gulf Coast region according to David Lewis, a mycologist, or mushroom expert, living in Newton, TX. who makes frequent trips into southeastern Louisiana for foraging. He says Louisiana has many major peaks for mushroom fruiting, especially in May, June, July, September, November and December. And "fruiting" is the mot juste, he notes, for the growth that we see at the base of trees or on supermarket shelves. "The fruiting body is really analogous to the fruit of a tree," he says. "The rest of it is underground."

The underground part, he explains, is in the form of fluffy, gossamer-like threads that derive their nutrients, year-round, from surrounding organic matter. They fruit in order to reproduce, and come this spring and summer, two of the area's tastiest varieties are about to do so. One is the Oyster mushroom, which tends to grow at the base of dead or decaying willow trees, which you can often find around the levee. This variety gets its name from the fluted shape of its cap (rather than the more typical umbrella shape) and its oyster-like smell. Its distinct flavor is an excellent match for both meat and fish.

The other variety is the Chanterelle, which fruits from May through July and can be found, readers of this publication should note with special attention, right at the base of the live oak trees that line St. Charles Avenue and what remains of the forested space in Audubon Park. Chanterelles, which smell vaguely of apricots, fruit longer than many other varieties because of a lower moisture content and can last up to a month, according to Lewis, though once you pick them and put them in the fridge they've got about a week until they start to turn.

One local chef with a particularly strong yen for chanterelles is John Besh, who has been foraging Chanterelles since his days at La Provence, when he started an annual tradition of weekly trips to Honey Island Swamp where he tends to find them by trees in sandy river soil. Now from the helm of Restaurant August, he says, "During the late spring and early summer, the menu is laden with Chanterelles."

A standout, which he has sworn to repeat this year, features redfish steak on a bed of Chanterelles and local potatoes which he covers and bakes, the liquid from the mushrooms evaporating and wafting over fish and potatoes with a perfumy steam. He then makes marmalade of the Chanterelles with vinegar, sugar, onions, garlic and thyme, putting a small dollop on the redfish while making a "tea" of dried chanterelles and broth, which is ladled over the fish at tableside.

A more unusual local offering is the Bear's Head variety, according to Dr. Charles Allen, the botanist for Fort Polk and head of the Cajun Prairie Preservation Society. "It has these long, white teeth hanging down on the outside which can be six to eight inches in diameter," he says. "There's no mistaking those." Still, for amateurs looking to forage, he cautions, the key word is "mistake." To that, he offers practical advice to those who might accidentally partake of a potentially deadly variety: "If you're not absolutely sure, just leave it alone."

While Lewis says there are far more edible varieties than poisonous ones in the Gulf Coast region, caution is always advisable. Certain local varieties like the ominous-sounding Avenging Angel, for instance, can be quite tasty, though your liver will probably have a violent disagreement with the experience about eight to ten hours after ingesting them.

For those who prefer to do their foraging in the safer, pre-screened environs of the supermarket, however, I've found that my local Whole Foods Market at Arabella Station offers a remarkable selection of fresh and dried mushrooms, and produce manager Brian Adams recently took me through some of the highlights.

While it's a bit pricey at $20 a pound, Hen in the Woods has an interesting, coral-like appearance and texture that adds richness to soups and stews, while also at $20 a pound, Royal Trumpet is excellent for stir-fry. Organic options are limited with mushrooms, since most tend to be foraged rather than farm-grown, though Whole Foods does carry organic oyster mushrooms. Other interesting options include Wood Ear, which resembles flat little pieces of algae and has a rubbery, noodle-like texture with a mild flavor, and dried options like lobster mushrooms, a good accompaniment to seafood, and morels. Catch them around holiday season and you can even get truffles, though at $300 an ounce, you might want to curb your enthusiasm (though at $20 for a small bottle, white truffle oil makes a lovely consolation prize).

At the Crescent City Farmers' Market, catch Jim and Louise Conarty, whose excellent Chanterelles come from riverbeds in Tangipahoa Parish, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. And still more options abound at the Asian Gourmet Market in Kenner, including ennoki mushrooms, which are popular in Thai dishes.

I've come a long way from my childhood foraging expeditions in Brookhaven Hamlet, where mushrooms were a slightly frightening treasure to set my 10-year-old imagination aflame. Now it's my palate that they've inspired, and as they come into season in the coming months, it's a perfect time to see what flavorful possibilities they hold.