Dinner last night consisted of home-grown oyster mushrooms, sauteed in garlic and white wine, tossed with arugula (that's rocket to me), slathered in freshly grated pecorino and served over pasta.
Sounds pretentious no? And ... yummy.
What was not so yummy was watching these things grow. Unlike these gorgeous photos of mushrooms growing in the wild, growing them in our kitchen was a decidedly un-visually-appealing experience.
You'll thank me for not sharing any pictures.
Mushrooms grow from spores right? Spores being fungus, fungus being mold. Mold don't look so appetizing.
We got a Home-Gro oyster mushroom kit (go look at their pics - ours looked nothing like that) from a friend a month or so ago. We duly opened the box, sprayed the soggy hay inside with water a couple of times a day, moved it around the kitchen looking for the best light. Nothing happened.
Then the mold.
Then the fungus.
Then the spores and finally, just when I was ready to throw
'You're not going to eat those?' asked Sylvia who works for us. 'Are you serious?' asked Frieda when I told her we would.
I wasn't so sure myself. But we did, and they were yummy.
Now we're 'sposed to turn the hunk of hay over in the box and start again on the other side but I'm not so sure.
As yummy as they were I think possibly that mushrooms, like steak, are best not grown at home.
2 comments:
but it looks so nice and clean and unmouldy on their facebook page pics!
(Don't forget to send me your phone number/skype)
I admire people with a green thumb, but sadly I have a brown thumb so everything I try and grow dies almost instantly. Thank God for supermarkets.
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