Mushrooms and Fungi in China

[Katie Meadow]

8 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Recently found a reliable source for these.

 

 

黑牛肝菌 (hēi niú gān jūn) - Black Boletes (Phlebopus portentosus, Tylopilus alboater or Boletus aereu. One of the few boletes that can be cultivated. Inedible when raw, but cooked have a rich unami taste and a nutty flavour.

Me likes.

 

Hail to the King! The real king, King Bolete

[Anna N]

8 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Recently found a reliable source for these.

It even looks meaty and delicious if that's possible. 

[liuzhou]

I mentioned dried maitake mushrooms back in 2019 but today I took delivery of some fresh from Yunnan province. 

 

 

Grifola frondosa is known by many names such as maitake (舞茸 or マイタケ, "dancing mushroom in Japanese, hen-of-the-woods, ram's head or sheep's head in English and 舞菇 (wǔ gū), 贝叶多孔菌 (bèi yè duō kǒng jūn), 云蕈 (yún xùn ), 栗子蘑 (lì zǐ mó), 栗蘑 (lì mó ), 千佛菌 (qiān fú jūn), 莲花菌 (lián huā jùn), 甜瓜板 (tián guā bǎn), 奇果菌 (qí guǒ jūn), or 叶奇果菌 (yè qí guǒ jūn) in Chinese.

 

It is native to the northern hemisphere from North America, across Europe and to Asia, including China and Japan, where it is particularly valued for dinner. Most in China seems to go mainly to TCM with all the usual unproven medical waffle that entails. Friends here are surprised to see it being eaten. Me likes.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2024 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

 

Another multiple name mushroom, found wild in Yunnan is Cantharellus cibarius*, the Chanterelle or Girolle. Usually known as 鸡油菌 (jī yóu jūn, literally ‘chicken oil mushroom’) but sometimes 黄菇 (huáng gū, ‘yellow mushroom’) or 酒杯蘑菇 (jiǔ bēi mó gu, ‘wine glass mushroom’, presumably for its shape).

 

These are not particularly common though and relatively expensive, coming to me at ¥421.22 / $59 USD per 500g, although that does include air delivery from Yunnan to my door. Well, the plane doesn’t come to the door but close enough!

 

* Cantharellus cibarius is actually a species group. Precisely which member of the group these are, I haven’t yet been able to determine.

 

 

[liuzhou]

Yunnan Province in south-west China has international borders with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar / Burma. Internally, it borders Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi and Tibet.

 

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 

It is renowned for its biodiversity and especially its abundance of mushrooms, with over 800 different edible varieties. Many are exclusive to Yunnan, some not so much.

 

Yunnan Mushrooms

 

For the next few days, I’ll post just a few starting with this:

 

 

红牛肝菌 (hóng niú gān jūn), Boletus gansuensis, Red Boletes. These are also found in Gansu province, hence the scientific name.

 

 

 

Edited July 15 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Most Yunnan mushrooms are wild and so foraged. They can be rather rare and seasonable and therefore on the pricy side but price also vary widely with the season and the harvest.

 

One of the more common is 鸡纵菌 (jī zòng jūn), chicken mushrooms, umbrella mushrooms and sometimes termite mushrooms. The latter name is important , but somewhat misleading, in that there are many species called that. The Termitomyces  family to which they all belong contains 52 types. The importance lies in that they grow in a symbiotic relationship with termites. In other words, they feed each other.

 

They grow in Yunnan, but also in Guizhou and here in Guangxi on termite mounds in the mountain areas.

It is said that there are seven varieties in Yunnan. I have access to these three.

 

 

This 👆 is known just as chicken mushroom as it is the most common.

 

 

These 👆 are 'torch chicken mushrooms'.

 

 

And these 👆 are open umbrella mushrooms, Termitomyces albuminosus. Care must be taken when foraging these as they can easily be mistaken for Chlorophyllum molybdites, which are poisonous and can causes potentially serious vomiting and diarrhea. They are the most consumed poisonous mushroom in North America.

 

All these are simply fried, often with ham, and often used in soups where they can take long cooking. Some people think they taste like chicken; others like enoki mushrooms. I’m in the middle. I find that mildly sweet with a slightly crunch texture

黑皮鸡枞菌, black skin chicken mushrooms are a related cultivated variety which are more widely available in recent years.

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:08 AM by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

 

见手青 (jiàn shǒu qīng), Lanmaoa asiatica, are members of the Bolete family and native to south-west China. I am unaware of any reliable English name. No surprise; they rarely make it out of the Yunnan area.

 

They are prized edibles but some people report mild hallucinatory experiences on eating them. Slightly more describe a mild high like being a bit happily tipsy. This lasts up to two hours. Scientists have so far been unable to identify which if any substance in the species is responsible. Most people report nothing at all but a nice dish of ‘shrooms.

 

The mushrooms are noted for turning blue when bruised but that disappears when they are cooked. Usually sliced and often paired with bamboo shoots and fatty pork. The stems remain slightly crunchy and the caps meltingly soft. Even after the 30 minutes cook recommended by some Yunnan people to dispel any hallucinatory effects.

 

I like. Who are these little green men dancing over there?

 

 

[Katie Meadow]

14 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

见手青 (jiàn shǒu qīng), Lanmaoa asiatica, are members of the Bolete family and native to south-west China. I am unaware of any reliable English name. No surprise; they rarely make it out of the Yunnan area.

 

They are prized edibles but some people report mild hallucinatory experiences on eating them. Slightly more describe a mild high like being a bit happily tipsy. This lasts up to two hours. Scientists have so far been unable to identify which if any substance in the species is responsible. Most people report nothing at all but a nice dish of ‘shrooms.

 

The mushrooms are noted for turning blue when bruised but that disappears when they are cooked. Usually sliced and often paired with bamboo shoots and fatty pork. The stems remain slightly crunchy and the caps meltingly soft. Even after the 30 minutes cook recommended by some Yunnan people to dispel any hallucinatory effects.

 

I like. Who are these little green men dancing over there?

 

 

A hallucinogenic bolete? What's not to like?

[liuzhou]

The difficult thing about doing these mushrooms is identifying what the hell they are. I only have the Chinese name for most. The Chinese rarely do scientific names and even when they do often get it wrong. One specimen was given a name that turned out to be a common houseplant; not anything fungal. Another led to a totally different mushroom. But mostly, I just don’t know. I can translate the Chinese name and search for that, but some names are rather cryptic, while others bear no relation to any real English name, so lead nowhere.

 

 

This one is less opaque than most in that there is some information on it but I have still been unable to find any Latin name. It is 龙爪菇 (lóng zhuǎ gū) which translates as ‘Dragon’s Claw Mushroom’. It is native to Chinese but not specifically Yunnan. In fact, it was first found by commercial concerns in Fujian province, far from Yunnan. Most are foraged but they are successfully cultivated in very limited amounts in a few places. They rarely get exported.

 

It is a type of clavarioid species, the coral fungi (in Chinese 珊瑚菇 (shān hú gū)) but that is an umbrella term covering many unrelated types.

 

They must be cooked and the taste is mildly sweet and earthy. The texture is crispy and meaty.

 

 

Edited Friday at 02:14 AM by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Here is personal favourite. 青头菌 (qīng tóu jūn), Green Headed Mushroom, Russula virescens. Despite the name, the colour varies from green to a light grey. They are also as the Green Cracking Russula or the Quilted Green Russula.

 

 

The highly respected London Italian chef, grocer and wild mushroom expert, the late Antonio Carluccio described these as being "not exactly nice to look at". They can look a bit mouldy.

 

Dried Green Headed Mushrooms

 

They grow under  tropical lowland rainforest trees in western Yunnan and we are just entering their season which will last until about September. Like shiitake and some other mushrooms, drying them enhances their flavour but cooking or even just soaking the dried mushrooms diminishes the colour. Some reports suggest that older specimens can smell like herrings, not something I’ve ever noticed.

 

Rehydrated Dried Mushroom

 

Care must be taken when foraging these, as younger specimens can resemble Amanita phalloides, the death cap mushroom, recently a feature in the Australian beef wellington murders case.

 

They can be fried, grilled or even roasted. In taste, they are mild, nutty and fruity. They can also be eaten raw in salads, but the people of Yunnan don’t go there.