KING trumpets that have a texture almost as firm and meaty as young porcini; shimeji that have a flavor that is wonderfully nutty; hen of the woods with a taste as earthy as their name. If you still think the cutting edge in grocery store mushrooms is enoki, shiitake and portobello, you've got some very pleasant surprises coming.
And if one Southern California partnership has its way, there are going to be plenty of those surprises available too.
In San Marcos, just north of San Diego, the Japanese mushroom giant Hokto Corp. is working with its American partner, Golden Gourmet Mushrooms, to build a massive, Space Age growing facility that within just a couple of years will be producing as many as 6 million pounds of these exotic mushrooms annually.
That's more than triple the amount of king trumpets, shimeji and hen of the woods sold in the United States last year. And though, according to the USDA, they represent less than 1% of all fresh mushroom sales (more than 675 million pounds last year), they're part of a segment that is increasingly profitable.
Though sales of the common button-type mushrooms have been mostly flat for the last five years, specialty mushroom sales increased 9% last year in spite of an average cost that's more than double the cost of buttons. "In the big picture, we're a fly on an elephant's behind," says Golden Gourmet President and Chief Executive Craig Anderson. "But it's been the biggest growth area in the industry."
Though today you'll rarely find trumpets, shimeji or hen of the woods at mainstream groceries, at Asian markets in Southern California they are year-round staples, almost as common as buttons. And for a specialty ingredient, they're surprisingly inexpensive -- usually less than $10 a pound.
As is common with mushrooms, each of these specialty varieties may be found under several names.
The king trumpets are also called king eryngii, or king oysters (technically they're Pleurotus eryngii, and are closely related to the common oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus). King trumpets are almost all stem and are large -- commonly 3 or 4 inches long and sometimes as many as 6 or 7. Their texture is firm and meaty and their flavor is mild.
Shimeji (Hypsizygus marmoreus or tessulatus), also called beech mushrooms, look like oversized enoki. However, while the latter are cute but basically flavorless, shimeji have a delicious nutty taste. They come in either white or brown.
