As Mushrooms Grow in Popularity, a Radical Mycology Movement is Emerging
A new book explores fungi’s role in nutrition, food security, ecological healing, and medicinal sovereignty.
BY GOSIA WOZNIACKA, MARCH 11, 2021
Behold the (mostly) hidden kingdom of life. Its members number approximately 2.2 to 3.8 million species, the vast majority of which have not yet been described or named. Some are invisible, buried under the earth and inside rotting trees. Some grow above ground. Others appear and disappear. Some taste great; others can kill you.
Despite their mysterious nature, fungi—a category that includes molds, mushrooms, yeasts, lichens, mycorrhiza, and mildews—are essential to human life and play crucial ecological functions. They have also been shown to help people solve a wide range of problems, from oil spills to clinical depression to food insecurity. Yet they are vastly understudied and misunderstood.
Journalist Doug Bierend spent five years exploring fungi and the emerging subcultures that have formed around them for his new book, In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms.
Civil Eats spoke with Bierend about fungi’s under-recognized status, their role as a catalyst in emergent social movements, and what it takes to grow and forage for mushrooms while furthering the ideas they inspire.
GW: I was born in Eastern Europe and have distinct memories of going on mushroom forays with my grandfather. I remember the mushrooms strung together on threads, air-drying in my grandparents’ tiny kitchen, their fruity smells wafting through the house. You write that in North America, people have negative associations with them or think they’re dangerous, a nuisance. Why is this?
Doug Bierend
I think there are a lot of factors at play. It’s a cultural inheritance, an Anglo mentality or attitude towards fungi. You can see fungi portrayed in Shakespeare, in other literature, and turns of phrase as disgusting, associated with death and decay (as if those last two were bad things). The specter of decay and death may come from certain parts of Europe and certain historical experiences. The potato blight that led to the Irish Potato Famine in which millions died, for example, was caused by a fungus-like pathogen. So some specific events or cultural trends led to the people who settled this land holding negative attitudes and bringing them to the New World. The Indigenous relationship with fungi in North America, which I’m not qualified to speak about at any depth, seems to be a lot less antagonistic.
Yes, there are practical reasons to be weary of fungi. If you’re a logger, you don’t want to see your valuable timber compromised by pathogenic fungi. If you’re building a house or working with food, you don’t want mold to grow. It’s obvious why people associate mold with trouble, but mold is just a tiny sliver of the reality of fungi and how we can relate to them.
GW: Why should Americans care more about fungi?
They are the reason you’re alive, in large part. They’re ubiquitous, fundamental, and fascinating. They play key roles and are often overlooked in those roles, for reasons of cultural disdain. They hold many insights into how nature works and how we might live in better accord with her. It’s incredible how useful fungi are and how those uses are only just being uncovered.
Fungi can help us provide food and medicine to communities that don’t have access to them. They are already the source of many of our pharmaceuticals [penicillin, for example, is used to make antibiotics], and could be the basis for new materials for textiles and green construction. They may also be able to help us clean up oil spills. They’re an entire universe, a kingdom of life that has yet to be uncovered.
GW: Why did science neglect fungi for such a long time?
In a historical sense, it comes down to the maturity of the natural sciences when they were being formalized. The British were a particularly important influence, with the formation of the Royal Society, the founding of botanical gardens, and the colonial botany project that was undertaken by the U.K. and other imperial powers to document life on earth and to exploit its natural resources, especially in the colonies.
Read more
***********
Why mushrooms are the new houseplant everybody’s growing
Easy to grow, visually beautiful and oodles of fabulous fungi for breakfast, what’s not to love?
Selling homegrown mushrooms – through bags small enough to sit on your kitchen countertop, filled with organic matter like grain or coffee grounds and inoculated with spores – has been Michael Crowe’s businesssince 2017. He enjoys hearing from happy customers, who sometimes send him updates on their progress. “It’s just so cool because it can bring together people of all ages, from all walks of life and people all over the place can grow food and have a really good time learning about it,” he says.
Then the pandemic hit and suddenly interest in the grow kits was booming beyond anything Crowe had seen before. It “just blew up”, he says. “It seemed like everybody, everybody was looking to grow mushrooms.”Advertisement
Crafty hobbies – especially those related to food – have certainly had a renaissance over the last 12 months. Starved of places to go – and eat – people have taken to baking their homemade sourdough breads, regrowing their scallions, and perfecting their cookie recipes. As a homegrown project that is relatively easy to get going (all one needs to do is buy a kit, slice it open and add water to get started) mushrooms fit ideally within this trend. And not only are mushrooms good to eat, they are also visually stunning (once you get beyond the white button variety usually found at the supermarket, that is).
So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Crowe is not the only one seeingDIY fungi fever grow over the last year. Across the pond Grocycle, a mushroom company based in Devon, UK, saw a 320% rise in grow kit sales during the last 12 months compared with the year prior. For the Maine-based company North Spore, demand for introductory mushroom growing supplies grew 400% during the pandemic.
It was the “pure sexiness” of pink oyster mushrooms that tempted London-based PhD candidate Barclay Bram to pick up a grow kit at his local market last November. Oyster mushrooms are a popular beginner’s shroom, being hardy and low-maintenance. Plus, it turns out eating the fruits of your own labor is tastier, too.
“I love cooking, and they were honestly some of the best mushrooms I’ve ever eaten,” says Bram – who weighted and seared some of his oyster mushrooms in a hot cast iron pan, then topped them with butter.
Some have opted to take the hobby further.George Clipp, from Melbourne, turned to DIY mushroom growing as a “project to get stuck in”, after he lost some work last spring. Heand his wife, copywriter Catie Payne, began compiling the equipment required to partially transform their laundry room into a shroom shack, including a mini greenhouse, growing substrate from a closed restaurant, and a used child’s humidifier they found for sale online. The extra effort paid off; Clipp and Payne have been flush with mushrooms all year – estimating they grow over A$500 (almost US$390) worth of pearl, blue, tan and Queensland white oyster mushrooms every couple of months.
Read more
