We have several closely related truffles in North America, but connoisseurs only considered

one, the Oregon white truffle, as choice that comes anywhere near the flavor of European truffles. It

has been hunted to near extinction. This fungus grows on the surface, not like its underground

European counterpart. Oregon white truffles are not often available, and when they are, at $150 to

$200 a pound ($335-400 a kilo), they are kept in a locked cabinet. You may find them in a high-

priced specialty food store and through mail-order suppliers.

But that is nothing compared to the true black truffles, which sell for $1300 a pound ($3000

a kilo). They are probably kept in a bank vault and weighed out with a jeweler’s scale with an

armed guard standing by. Needless to say, you will not find truffles on the produce display of a

supermarkets.

Truffles are also available frozen if special ordered, but unfortunately, their frozen state

doesn't lower the price.

How they grow mushrooms

We can pick mushrooms in the wild but most of us prefer to pick them in the market's

produce department. Only a few types of mushrooms have adapted well to domestic cultivation.

What we use mostly is the common, ordinary white mushroom that distributors call button

mushroom. It is scientific name is Agaricus bisporus. The wild ancestor is far more flavorful than its

commercial counterpart. Consumer demand for a uniform product and producers' requirements for

long shelflife, high yield and disease resistance have taken their toll on the flavor of the

domestically cultivated version. Also, most consumers prefer a milder, less aggressive flavor. The

wild ancestor, indeed, can have a powerfully mushroomy flavor that would no doubt overwhelm

average taste buds.

Mushrooms enjoy worldwide cultivation, especially in the Orient, in Western and Central

Europe. Logically, those countries whose cuisines use a lot of them grow the most, and mainly by

thousands of small individual growers.

TASTINGS The cultivated kinds

Commercial button mushrooms make up 60 percent of total world production,

shiitakes represent 14 percent, oyster and paddy straw mushroom 8 percent each. All

the other exotic species make up the remaining 10 percent of the total. Commercial

growing of exotic mushrooms in North American only goes back to the early 1980s.

In North America, a few very large and many small growers supply commercially. The

smaller growers distribute to local markets. Some growers are even "back yard" farmers, raising just

enough to supplement incomes. Growing mushrooms, however, is tricky. I still remembers the next

door neighbor's attempt to grow mushrooms in his basement while I was a kid in a small city in

Hungary.

The beginning phase was awful. A large horse-drawn wagon that stank to high heavens

slowed down in front of the house one sunny autumn day. Instead of moving on, it turned into the

neighbor's backyard. My family and I watched with horror as the neighbor opened his basement

window on the side of his house facing our dining room window, and the cart owner filled the

basement with the smelly stuff that my mother clearly identified as horse manure.

Apparently the neighbor did not violate any city code, and my mother's mild complaints to

the neighbor did not help. He assured her that once he closed his basement window there would be

Serious Kitchen Play