Mushrooms
I just wanted to take a minute to inform Lauren Shockey that her reference to “wild mushrooms” in “Eat Your Heart Out” (11/1/05) is wrong.
The varieties she writes about, shitake, oyster, and portobello, are in fact farm raised and cultivated. It’s a common mistake, and a common misleading entry on many restaurant menus. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked about the variety of mushrooms used in a so-called wild mushroom entrée to be told the three listed above and the three listed in the article.
For those of us who forage for truly wild mushrooms, it seems hardly fair that these folks try to market their spawn-grown, farm-raised mushroom varieties as “wild.”
Rex Bartlett
