 The topic of mushroom nutrition, especially as a substitute for nutrient-rich meats, has been a central theme to vegetarians and vegans for some time, but, according to this article from only early 2020, the “exotic” mushroom industry has been seeing a boom over the past several years that has excited many producers. There is certainly an ever growing awareness of the dangers of doing the same thing (and expecting different results), and partnering with fungi and with mushrooms in every aspect of our lives is something we as a species haven’t yet fully embraced.
Mushrooms are the nutrient dense fruit bodies of the mycelial mat--the true body of the fungus--that covers vast areas of ground below us—in some cases measured in hundreds of acres rather than square feet. These dense networks of single-cell thick tubes have been estimated to comprise of up to 8km of fibers within a single cubic centimeter of soil. Like our own nervous system or circulation system touching every cell in our bodies, the mycelium is able to access every part of the forest, transferring nutrients from tree to tree, and using sophisticated trading programs that seem to behave more like capitalism, rather than a simple release and absorb protocol that we have ascribed to nature. Fungi regulates the literal health of an ecosystem. Though it seemed a fantasy at the time, the images of the mother tree with roots connecting the whole earth in James Cameron’s movie “Avatar” wasn’t that far off. A new project launched in 2021 now aims to map this vast network of fungal fibers–estimated to cover astronomical distances.
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 It seems when looking through our retrospectacles, 2023 all but came and went in a flash, and yet, when we look back, we are astounded at all of things we did and places we visited!
In January, we launched our most ambitious adventure schedule yet, with five mushroom adventures in Oaxaca, and co-creating the now legendary NAMA_MX23, a North American Mycologist joint project that was even beyond expectation in how beautiful of an experience it was. Zack also traveled to Oregon and California for the annual SOMA Mushroom Camp (he is leaving Oaxaca in a week to repeat the trip this year!).  Mushroom Hunting Queen Reina shows off her triple find of Amanita basii. Photo by Eli Garcia-Padilla. Things have been accelerating here in Oaxaca for our tour season, as well as making new partnerships and friends! So read on for a journey with the People of the Clouds into the ludic realm of spores and forest games of discovery.
On Tourism.. We at The Fungivore started with our first mushroom tour in Oaxaca in 2019— and as we are in the midst in 2023, I am happy to say that 5 years in, the form of this project that best suits our attitudes, our dreams and our particular skill-sets is really coming into a sharper focus, and our mission and dreams are in hi-def, compared to when we began. It seemed we were starting a business for tourism; but… ...tourism is a loaded word. There are so many flavors of “tourism,” but so much of the industry does little to preserve our world and our heritage, natural and historical. And therein lies the tourism rub: how do you attract people to show off the wonder of the your world (and profit from it) without aiding it’s destruction? Most don’t try. They simply create a demand for a location, and extract as much as they can, from both the vacationers, but also from the environment, in some cases eventually causing so much destruction that the place itself is effectively destroyed. What if there was an alternative? What if at the end of a visit the attendees, the communities & the tour leaders all felt inspired, replenished and excited for the next opportunity? What if instead of the familiar dynamic of the “served” and “servers,” experiences were designed specifically for everyone involved to leave feeling full? We think we may be on to something… Co-Author's note: For those following, you know that I have been using an AI generator to create the images for these posts. Well, I have been playing around with ChatGPT-4 Plus, with the additions of plugins, and I wanted to test the ability to research and co-write papers. This is an article that I co-wrote with ChatGPT, edited, expanded in parts, changed some of the language. Color me fascinated. If you do find mis-information here, please let me know. This is an experiment. That said, you will find the extensive list of citations at the end, each with their own links.  The use of psychedelic substances, particularly mushrooms, has a deep-rooted history in Mesoamerican cultures, dating back to pre-Columbian times. Mushroom stones, believed to be associated with ritualistic use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, have been found in Mesoamerican archaeological sites and are estimated to be from around 3000 BC.
The indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica, including the Olmec, Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations, used a variety of psychoactive substances in their religious ceremonies and healing rituals. Among these substances were peyote, hallucinogenic mushrooms known as teonanacatl (Psilocybe spp.), and the seeds of ololiuhqui (Turbina corymbosa). These substances contain mescaline, psilocybin, and lysergic acid amide, respectively, which are all compounds known to induce altered states of consciousness. The Maya, for instance, consumed balche, a mixture of honey and extracts of Lonchocarpus, in group ceremonies to achieve intoxication. They also used ritual enemas with psychoactive substances to induce states of trance. The skin of the toad Bufo spp., which contains bufotoxins with hallucinogenic properties, was used during the Olmec period. Other plants like jimson weed (Datura stramonium), wild tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), water lily (Nymphaea ampla), and Salvia divinorum were also used for their psychoactive effects. Even today, local shamans and healers in Mesoamerica continue to use these psychoactive substances in their ritual ceremonies.  Composer Václav Hálek first heard music, complete songs, when staring at a mushroom in 1980. Since then, he has created almost 6000 mushroom inspired pieces for everything from piano to violin. He says that when he looks at a mushroom, he just hears the music playing in his head and is able to instantly transcribe the melody and the music in real time.
And I thought I loved mushrooms! But this claim and deed of Václav Hálek is not one that exists in a vacuum. There is a most mysterious air about when one is deeply interacting with the fungi. Do you have experiences yourself with seemingly inexplicable or unexplained synchronicity events around fungi? Paul Stamets himself catches flack from the most ardent science-based mycologists for his claims of "divine" connections, and yet, here he is, producing discovery after discovery of the properties of thousands of Fungi, some of the most incredible realizations inspired from his liminal dream state, the place your mind goes just before waking up.  Compound Butter is one of the most brilliant ways to keep and store fresh flavors throughout the cold of winter, when the dearth of mushrooms and fresh herbs might otherwise cause one to go insane. Of course, dried and rehydrated mushrooms may be used for this recipe as well, but why not preserve fresh when you can? The concept is simple. Using the matrix of room temp butter, you make a mixture of sorts, and then store it in the freezer in a way that makes it easy to use small amounts at a time. It can be used on steak, vegetables, in dishes, as a finishing butter for sauces, or simply spread on toast for any time.
 I recently made the proposal in a fit of faux outrage that mushrooms are disrespected by being shelved in nearly all cookbooks unceremoniously under "Vegetables." And this isn't just my imagination: from illustrious home science cookbooks such as "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee, to "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji Alt-lopez, to the physical locations of mushrooms in grocery stores, our collective bias, perhaps fueled by misunderstanding, have forced mushrooms into the vegetable section.
You often find the missive "mushrooms are not true plants," as if this were enough to then disregard the factual data which show that not only are fungus definitively not plants, they are evolutionarily older than plants, in fact the progenitor of Kingdom Plantae (Fungi are also the evolutionary progenitor of Kingdom Animalia as well). If anything were fair in this world, vegetables would be a footnote in the fungus section of the cookbook. Maybe not, but such is the depths of my outrage in discovering such bias not only throughout the body public, but also in my own intellectual comprehension. The battle to erect a Third Culinary Kingdom just became personal, as well, as I see bias within me melting away. Now wait a minute, you say, there is no "Fungus" section in cookbooks. That is true. Not yet, at least.  There is ample evidence to assert that cooking may in fact be the thing that separates us from our more primitive ancestors. In Richard Wrangham's book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human," the author goes through a number of physiological changes that occurred during an incredibly short period of human evolution... somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 years only. Consider the millions of years as primates, the swift shift that drastically altered our physique in such sweeping changes demands a powerful force of nature be the main inspiration for such changes.
And so, says Wrangham, fire entered the fray. Some of the more obvious physiological changes to occur to our ancestral Australopithecines as they marched forward through time and evolution toward the Homo habilis and eventually to our own genus name, Homo sapiens sapiens, are what we would define as our primary traits: our relatively fur-free bodies, our upright stature, and our distinct lack of subcutaneous (under the skin) fat, and relatively flat stomachs (rather than the distended bellies of our ancestral creatures). These adaptions give rise to our ability to outrun game, having seemingly endless energy to hunt and to move about, and with the right amount of beer, return ourselves to the shape of our ancestors if we so choose.... at least the distended belly!  Despite the near global recognition of the scientific name of the most recognized molecule responsible for the umami experience, monosodium glutamate--and its ubiquitously recognized and shunned acronym MSG --not many people truly understand what this taste is, where it comes from, and why it has remained controversial over the past many decades.
The sensation of umami was first described (and also named) by Japanese food scientist Kikunae Ikeda in the early 1900s. Ikeda also founded the company to start the manufacturing of this molecule, extracted from the Kombu sea vegetable (most likely the variant Saccharina japonica var. ochotensis). As a result, the study of Umami that subsequently followed in the decades to come was also predominantly in Japan. The use of umami-rich ingredients in foods is specifically concentrated in Japanese cooking, as was the extraction and popularization of MSG in cooking. Ikeda was excited about his discovery because he thought to make otherwise bland (healthy) foods taste delicious, and by adding the isolated MSG to foods, would improve the national diet of Japan, encouraging children to eat otherwise less-than-tasty foods (and adults, likewise, though Ikeda viewed this as a less acute problem). Despite all of the copious linkages between Japan and the umami experience, the negative reputation of this controversial molecule is actually rooted in racism in America against the Chinese, and the reactions to the molecule to this day are still based in what was once termed "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome." The racism is still continuing to this day, pervasive even in conversation I have personally had in just the last week. Despite incontrovertible evidence that there is no traceable toxicity of this particular molecule. Celebrity chef David Chang has pushed back hard against this nonsense. |
Zachary Hunter
Zachary Hunter is a lifelong devotee to flavor, a professionally trained chef who has been obsessed with mushrooms and uncovering the unknown with regards to edible mushroom chemistry and physiology. He is a member of the NAMA's (North American Mycological Association) Culinary Committee. He lives in Oaxaca, Mexico with his wife Kimberly Hunter--known collectively as the "Mushroom Hunters"--where they offer experiential immersions: artisan-maker intensives as Traveling Traders Bazaar and Mushroom adventures as The Fungivore. 2024 will be their sixth season curating adventures together in Mexico. Learn more at TheFungivore.com or TravelingTradersBazaar.com Archives
April 2024
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