How to...

...isolate mycelium from a mushroom!

You want to isolate mycelium from a mushroom and you don't know how? Maybe I can help.

1- First you need to choose a mushroom (in this photo Pleurotus ostreatus).

 2 - Then open the mushroom by its cap.

3 - Choose your isolation spot (use a part of the mushroom stem or cap for the isolation)

 4 - With a scalpel cut a piece of the mushroom in your isolation spot.

5 - Put that mushroom piece in a Petri dish with the right culture media (the culture media varies according to the mushroom you're using)

6 - Put the Petri dish in a place with the right temperature of incubation so the mycelium can grow.

And there you go! A nice and hopefully contamination-free isolation. 

Note: If you don't have access to a lab you can use an alcohol lamp to keep the isolation environment as sterile as possible.

Mushroom music

Did you know that you can not only eat mushrooms but also listen to them??

I'm talking about the famous Israeli psytrance/electronica duo formed by Erez Eisen ("Eisen") and Amit Duvdevani  ("Duvdev"). Since 1997 they edited 8 albums  and several singles/EPs, using a wide variety of musical souces and complex synthesized basses.

Why don't you "taste it"?

                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                         If you liked the "taste" of this mushroom  visit their website http://infected-mushroom.com/music/. There you'll find everything about their work, from videos to pictures, with space for news and merchandising.                                                                                                                  

Enjoy!

Pholiota nameko

Scientific classification 

Kingdom: Fungi
Phylum: Basidiomycota
Class: Homobasidiomycetae
Order: Agaricales
Family: Strophariaceae
Genus: Pholiota

General information

Common name(s): Nameko or Namerako (Japanese for "Slimy Mushroom"), Slime Pholiota, Viscid Mushroom

Edibility: Edible

Distribution: This mushroom species is very common in the cool, temperate highlands of China, Taiwan, and throughout the islands of northern Japan.

Description

Pholiota nameko's cap can grow up to 8 cm, showing an hemispheric to convex, and sometimes plane, shape. Its surface is covered with an orangish, glutinous slime, thickly encapsulating the mushroom primordia,thinning as the mushrooms mature. The slime quickly collapses, leaving a viscid and smooth cap. P. nameko's gills are white to yellow, becoming brown with maturity. This mushroom species has a partial veil yellowish, adhering to the upper regions of the stem or along the inside peripheral margin. Its stem grows up to 8 cm in length and it is covered with fibrils and swelled near the base.

Natural habitat: This mushroom usually growa on broad-leaf hardwood stumps and logs in the temperate forests of Asia, especially deciduous oaks and beech (Fagus crenata).


Use in medicine

• water and sodium hydroxide extracts are 60% and 90% effective, respectively, against Sarcoma 180 implanted in white mice

• resistance to infection by Staphylococcus bacteria is substantially improved

Preparation and Cooking: Pholiota nameko is easily diced into miniature cubes and can be used in a wide variety of menus, from stir fries to miso soups. Once the glutinous slime is cooked away, the mushroom becomes quite appetizing, having a crunchy and nutty/mushroomy flavor.

Sources:
- Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.

Pleurotus eryngii

 Scientific classification

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Agaricomycetes

Order: Agaricales

Family: Pleurotaceae

Genus: Pleurotus

General information

Common name(s): king trumpet mushroom, French horn mushroom, king oyster mushroom, boletus of the steppes,trumpet royale

Edibility: Edible

Distribution: This species can be found throughout southern Europe, North Africa, central Asia and the southern of former Soviet Union.

Description

Pleurotus eryngii's cap has a convex shape that expands and becomes funnel-shaped when mature and it can grow up to 12 cm in diameter. It's magin is typically inrolled and extends with maturity. Its central, thick, tapering downward stem can reach up to 10 cm in length and its gills are fairly distant, thin, grayish and decurrent. This mushroom species usually grows individually or in small groups.

Natural habitat

This terrestrial species usually grows on Eryngium campestre roots.

Use in medicine:

• chemicals which may stimulate the immune system (in vitro research)

• used to treat Tobacco mosaic virus.

Preparation and Cooking: Stir frying until edges become crispy golden brown. A chewy,

nutty mushroom, this species is far superior to Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus pulmonarius. This mushroom goes well with Italian dishes and especially with lamb, pork and fish.

Sources:

- Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.

-  "Mushroom acidic glycosphingolipid induction of cytokine secretion from murine T cells and proliferation of NK1.1 alpha/beta TCR-double positive cells in vitro", Biochem Biophys Res Commun

Hericium erinaceus

    Scientific classification

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Agaricomycetes

Order: Russulales

Family: Hericiaceae

Genus: Hericium

General information

Common name(s): Lion's Mane Mushroom, Monkey's Head, Bearded Tooth Mushroom, Hedgehog Mushroom, Satyr's Beard, Bearded Hedgehog Mushroom, pom pom mushroom, Bearded Tooth Fungus, Yamabushi-take (Japanese for "Mountain-priest mushroom")´

Edibility: Edible

Distribution: This mushroom species can be found in the wild in North America, Europe, China and Japan

Description 

Hericium erinaceus fruiting body is composed of downward, cascading, non-forking spines that can reach up to 40 cm in diameter. Its colour is tipically white tending to brown or yellow, from the top to the bottom, when mature. 

Natural habitat

This mushroom species grows on dying or dead oak, walnut, beech, maple, sycamore and other broad-leaf tree. It's found frequently on logs or stumps.

Use in medicine:

• antioxidant effects
• may regulate blood lipid levels
• may reduce blood glucose levels
• treatment of gastric ulcers and esophageal carcinoma
• possible anti-dementia compounds

Preparation and cooking: Some people describe this mushroom flavour similar to lobster while others say that his flavour is reminiscent of egg-plant. Cut the mushrooms transverse to the spines, into dials, and cook them at high heat in canola (rape seed) oil until the moisture has been reduced and the dials are light golden brown. The addition of a small amount of butter near the end of the cooking cycle brings out the lobster flavor. You can also add garlic, onions and almonds. 

Sources
- Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.
-  "Hypoglycemic effect of extract of Hericium erinaceus". Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
-  "Icons of Medicinal Fungi from China." Beijing: Science Press
- "Effect of an exo-polysaccharide from the culture broth of Hericium erinaceus on enhancement of growth and differentiation of rat adrenal nerve cells". Cytotechnology 

Pleurotus citrinopileatus

 Scientific classification

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Agaricomycetes

Order: Agaricales

Family: Pleurotaceae

Genus: Pleurotus

General information

Common name(s): The golden oyster mushroom; tamogitake (Japanese); Ii' mak (Soviet Far East term for elm mushroom)   
                  
Edibility: Edible  

Distribution: Native to the forested, subtropics of China, southern Japan and adjacent regions.

Description
This species can grow up to 5 cm in diameter. Its depressed and convex cap expands to plane when mature and presents us with colours that vary from golden to bright yellow. It has decurrent gills which show through the translucent cap flesh and Its white stem is centrally  attached to the caps. P. citrinopileatus fruiting bodies usually grow in clusters diverging from a single and joined base. Sometimes these clusters can be composed of more than an hundred mushrooms. As strains of this species senesce, the yellow cap color is lost, becoming beige, and fewer mushrooms are produced in each primordial cluster.

Natural habitat: This saprophytic mushroom grows on Asian hardwoods, especially oaks, elm, beech and poplars.

Use in medicine: 

• antihyperglycemic properties
• decreasing blood sugar levels (diabetic rats)
• source of lipid-lowering drugs
• potentially cures pulmonary emphysema

Preparation and Cooking: Mushrooms are better broken into small pieces and stir-fried, at high heat for at least 15-20 minutes.This mushroom is extremely bitter and tangy when lightly cooked, flavor sensations pleasant to few and disdained by most.

Sources:

- Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.

-  "Antihyperlipidemic and Antioxidant Effects of Extracts from Pleurotus citrinopileatus". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Agrocybe aegerita

Scientific classification

 Kingdom: Fungi

 Phylum:  Basidiomycota

 Class: Agaricomycetes

 Order: Agaricales

 Family: Strophariaceae

 Genus: Agrocybe

General information

Common name(s): Chestnut mushroom; Yanagi-matsutake (Japanese); Pioppino (Italian); South Poplar Mushroom; Zhuzhuang-Tiantougu (Chinese).
     
Edibility: Edible

Distribution: Not known to occur in North America outside of the southeastern states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. Common across southern Europe and in similar climatic zones of the Far East.

Description

Agrocybe aegerita can grow up to 12 inches in diameter. Its cap is convex to hemispheric, expanding to plane when mature, with colours varying from yellowish gray to grayish brown to tan to dingy brown, becoming darker towards the center. It has gray gills at first, which become chocolate brown with spore maturity. It's a very smooth mushroom with a white stem,  adorned with a well developed membranous ring, usually colored brown from spore fall.

Natural Habitat

This saprophytic mushroom grows often in clusters on stumps in the southeastern United States and southern Europe. It prefers hardwoods, especially cottonwoods, willows, poplars, maples, box elders, and  tea-oil trees (in China).

Use in medicine:

• anti-cancer properties;
• hypoglycemic properties;
• antioxidant compounds;
• compounds with inhibitory properties against cyclooxygenase (enzime).

Preparation and Cooking: Finely chopped and stir fried, cooked in a white sauce and poured onto a fish or chicken, or baked in a stuffing, this species imparts a mild but satisfying pork-like flavour.

Sources

 - www.medicalmushrooms.net

 - Stamets, Paul (2000). Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.