Mushrooms are just wild

I may not remember the first time I ate a mushroom, but I do remember the first time I took a step back and considered a mushroom to be something special, something mysterious, something other than a crowd-polarizing topping for pizza.

It was summer, and I was 22 and without an apartment in New York, where I had just moved for a job. When a co-worker announced he needed a housesitter in Hastings-on-Hudson, just up the river from Manhattan, I readily accepted the job.

I still hadn’t found an apartment when David and Martha returned from their vacation on Cranberry Island in Maine, but they generously invited me to stay for a bit. It was during that time that I had my mycological awakening.

On a Saturday afternoon, I encountered David in the kitchen with a magnifying glass, an old book opened to a well-loved page and a rather large fungus attached to a cutting board with straight pins.

“It’s an obscure species of Russula, a very large genus that can only be told apart by noticing very fine details,” he said, looking up from his project. To detect the details, David was taking a spore print.

I was skeptical at first, and often stood in the corner of the kitchen while Martha and David laid out his loot on the table. Martha, ever the skeptic and in great fear of being poisoned, insisted that David be 100 percent sure of each mushroom’s identity before cooking a feast for the family.

That summer and fall, I watched David come home from his weekly walks in the woods with all kinds of mushrooms: chanterelles, boletes, giant puffballs, morels, hen-of-the-woods, honey mushrooms.

He cooked simple but elegant dishes that invited all the woodsy flavors of the mushrooms to come through. There were hen-of-the-woods omelets, a chanterelle risotto, and simple mushroom sautes from blewits and shaggy parasols to top grilled meats and green salads.

As for the inedible varieties he carted home, Martha made sure those didn’t make it into the soups and other concoctions they cooked together.

Since then, I have taken to mushrooms, going beyond the tired but true white caps found on pizzas and in crudites. In an exploration of single-girl cooking in my first Manhattan apartment, I discovered dried porcini mushrooms and how their intense, nutty flavor was a surefire way to impress a date.

A vegetarian roommate turned me on to the meaty tooth feel and flavor of a grilled whole portobello cap. Now I eat them on brioche with Dijon mustard. My acupuncturist opened my world to the supposed healing properties of mushrooms and had me drinking shiitake tea for better kidney function. I’m not sure if it worked, but I enjoyed the ritual of buying and stewing the mushrooms each week.

Joining my local mycological society is the next step. The thought of combing the woods with sages and enthusiasts like David, gathering up a basketful of mushrooms and cooking them the same day sounds like the ultimate earthy experience to me.

Imagine finding that secret corner of the woods where the chanterelles come up in the late summer and fall. Some of the really showy ones are big enough to give as a bouquet. What a delectable prize. Besides, the mushroom habit can get expensive. Hunting my own could be a real money saver.

Amy Farges, co-founder of the exquisite mushroom importing company Aux Delices des Bois in New York and author of “The Mushroom Lovers’ Mushroom Cookbook and Primer” (Workman), says the best way to get to know new varieties of mushrooms is simply to experiment by substituting an unfamiliar mushroom in a recipe where you normally would use white button mushrooms.

If you find yourself in a farmers market or a fancy food shop where lobster mushrooms are available, forgo your usual white mushrooms and eggs and saute the lobsters with some herbs to serve atop scrambled eggs.

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