Slices of morel, a wild mushroom

Fungus in our kitchens? We have two basic types. We are not overjoyed at the sight of the

ugly green kind that grows on forgotten leftovers in the refrigerator. The second type is true

mushrooms. If these also grew naturally and in abundance in our kitchens like the ugly green stuff,

we could all start lucrative businesses, especially if our kitchen mushroom patches produced the

exotic kinds for which lovers of good food pay more than for a cut of beef tenderloin.

Neither fish nor fowl

It is hard to believe that the mushroom, a prized ingredient in many elegant dishes, is a

simple fungus. Although it usually appears in the vegetable section of cookbooks, mushrooms are

actually the fruit of underground fungi.

To propagate the species, these fungi produce spore-bearing mushrooms which push up

through the earth. Mushrooms mature fast, produce and disperse their spores, and just as quickly

die. A mushroom's life, like that of fresh fish, is measured in days.

Unlike almost all other plants, mushrooms contain no green chlorophyll that helps a plant

manufacture its food from light, carbon dioxide and water. Mushrooms grow on, and feed from,

fresh and decomposing organic material in the ground or on wood surfaces.

These exotic "vegetables" grow virtually everywhere in the world. Their spores are so tiny

and light that moving water or air currents readily disperse them over long distances, hundreds and

thousands of miles. That explains why they are so widespread, and also why the same types occur

throughout the world.

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