Getting to Know the Mushroom Man

Here's a delightful post from Meg Klepack, our Local Food Coordinator, back from a trip to Amir Hebib's mushroom house. Look for more guest posts from Meg in the future!

"Before I went to visit Amir Hebib and his mushrooms, my co-workers and I began wondering aloud about mushrooms. Do they really grow in the dark? Do full size mushrooms grow up from mushroom babies or emerge fully formed? What does mushroom tending entail? Do mushroom farmers have to get up early? Amir’s shiitake and oyster mushrooms are sold in wooden bins in our Produce Department but how those brown caps, the color of jersey cows, and gray trumpets, the color of elephant’s ears, get into our store seems nothing less of mysterious and magical.

Amir has owned and operated A.H. Mushrooms from the back of his house since 2004. Driving down the road to his home in Colchester, you’d never guess you were close to a mushroom farm. From an unpresuming shed in the backyard, Amir produces 150 pounds of mushrooms each week.

Mushroom production is labor intensive and production is a full-time job for Amir. Amir must harvest the mushrooms each morning before delicately removing the woody base of each mushroom, preparing them for mid-day deliveries. In the afternoon the logs are soaked to keep them damp. Most time consuming is manually removing the green molds that also like to grow on his mushroom logs. While the process could be completed more quickly with fungicides, Amir manages his mushrooms organically and so must spend the time to remove each spot of mold by hand.

Amir claims his favorite way to eat mushrooms is in soup, so in honor of Amir and his mushrooms, I went home to make miso soup that evening."

Miso Soup
10 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1½ cups boiling water
 
2 medium carrots, chopped
4 cups vegetable stock or water
1½ cups shredded greens, such as bok choy, endive, Chinese cabbage, or spinach
2 tablespoons red miso
2 tablespoons light miso
1 cake tofu
 
Chopped scallions
Crumbled toasted nori
 
Place the sliced shiitakes in a heat-proof bowl, cover with boiling water, and set aside for about 10 minutes.
 
In a soup pot, cover the carrots with 3½ cups of the stock or water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the carrots are crisp-tender.
Add the shiitakes and their soaking liquid to the carrots and stock. Stir in the greens and continue to simmer for about 5 minutes until they are just tender or wilted.
 
In a small bowl, blend both misos with the remaining ½ cup of stock. Cut the tofu into ½-inch cubes. Stir the miso mixture into the soup, add the tofu, and heat gently. Be careful not to let the soup boil.
 
Garnish the soup with scallions and with nori flakes if you wish.
 
Adapted From The Moosewood Cooks at Home

 

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