This week’s column is about mushrooms whose history as food goes back at least 7,000 or 8,000 years. Before we get into history, we should define what mushrooms are and are not.
Mushrooms are not plants, because plants need sunlight and carbon dioxide to synthesize their food. Mushrooms rely only on organic matter. Unlike plants, they do not produce chlorophyll (a green pigment that helps plants create their own food,) but they are high in nutrients. They live off dead and decaying matter, such as wood and leaves.
In addition to numerous kinds of edible mushrooms, there are thousands of species of other fungi including types of molds, mildews, yeasts, rusts and toadstools (poisonous mushrooms).
No one knows who ate the first edible mushroom, but it must have been thousands of years ago. Egyptian Pharaohs ate mushrooms, and for centuries mushroom consumption was limited to the wealthy. Louis XIV’s reign in the 17th century marked the start of cultivation and marketing of mushrooms. French gardeners grew mushrooms in caves, which provided a perfect environment. In the United States, mushroom farming became popular in the early 20th century. The first commercial mushroom farm in the U.S. was established in 1896 in Pennsylvania which today continues to be the leading producer of mushrooms in the U.S. In the 1920s waves of European immigrants brought with them knowledge of mushroom cultivation. New technologies and techniques, such as climate-controlled growing environments, revolutionized the industry and allowed for year-round cultivation. The resulting increase in production and lowered costs led to today’s widespread availability of mushrooms in supermarkets and restaurants.
Mushroom farming is big business today. World production of cultivated mushrooms is about 4 million tons a year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports…
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