Button mushroom

The button mushroom is one of the most widely cultivated mushrooms in the world. This fungus is also called the table mushroom, white mushroom, common mushroom, cultivated mushroom, and called champignon de Paris in France. Note that while this specific mushroom is sometimes called simply champignon in the English-speaking world, this word means "fungus" in general in French, including all mushrooms, toadstools and even fungal infections. __TOC__

Overview

Most grocery stores in the Western world sell this mushroom in canned and fresh preparations. An agaric, its gills are often left on in preparations. It can be found cooked on pizzas and casseroles,stuffed mushrooms, raw on salads, and in various forms in a variety of dishes.

Button mushrooms are fairly rich in vitamins and minerals. The mushroom contains an especially high amount of vitamin B and potassium. Raw mushrooms are naturally cholesterol, fat, and sodium free. The mushrooms also have very low energy levels—five medium-sized button mushrooms added together only have twenty Calories (80 kilojoules).

Button mushrooms have a unique flavor that can be matched by few other mushrooms. No specific flavor can be defined; most people describe the mushroom as "plain", but other people say that the button mushroom tastes slightly sweet or "meaty".

Like potatoes and apples, table mushrooms "rust" quickly when exposed to air. When sliced and exposed to air for ten minutes or more, the mushrooms quickly soften, turn a brownish color, and lose their original flavor. For this reason, whole raw button mushrooms always have the best flavor.

The agaricus bisporus mushroom originated in France. Today's commercial variety of the button mushroom was originally a light brown color. In 1926, a Pennsylvanian mushroom farmer found a clump of button mushrooms with white caps in his mushroom bed. As was done with the navel orange and red delicious apple, cultures were grown from the mutant individuals, and most of the cream-colored store mushrooms we see today are products of this haphazard natural mutation.

In most supermarkets, button mushrooms are marketed as "table mushrooms" and are often packed in small quantities. Mushrooms may be sold sliced or whole.

Portobello mushroom

The Portobello mushroom (sometimes portobella) is a large brown strain of the same fungus, left to mature and take on a broader, more open shape before picking. Portobello mushrooms are distinguished by their large size, thick cap and stem, and a distinctive musky smell. Because of their size and the thickness of their fleshy caps, these mushrooms can be cooked in a range of different ways, including grilling and frying.

Image:Portobello_mushrooms.jpg|Portobello mushrooms Image:Stuffed mushrooms with spiced quinoa.JPG|Portobello mushrooms are popular mushrooms for stuffing Image:Giant mushroom cross-section.jpg|Cross-section Image:Giant mushroom underside.jpg|View from underneath

Crimini mushroom

Although sometimes described a sub-variety of the portobello mushroom, the crimini or cremini mushroom is actually an immature portobello. In fact, savvy marketers have begun to refer to crimini mushrooms as baby portobellos. Left to grow another 48 to 72 hours, a crimini mushroom will more than quadruple in size, taking on the large-capped portobello shape. They are more delicate in texture but still have the meaty portobello flavor.

Meadow mushroom

A closely-related wild mushroom, the meadow mushroom (A. campestris), can be found throughout much of the United States. However, care must be taken, as it resembles the immature stage of a number of the deadly poisonous Amanita species.

Panaeolus subbalteatus

Growers of white mushrooms often must watch out for the red-capped Panaeolus subbalteatus, a hallucinogenic mushroom that grows in the same environment. Panaeolus subbalteatus is found on manure and rotting hay in the wild, and it is frequently found in the compost used by white mushroom cultivators. With its differently shaped reddish-brown cap, it does not look similar to the white mushroom, which greatly eases finding and removing it from the crop.

Mushroom hunting

Mushroom hunting can be a satisfying hobby. But don't look for button mushrooms in the wild unless you are an expert. The button mushroom can be confused easily with young specimens of destroying angel. The resemblance is significant enough to have caused fatal mushroom poisonings. Some of the differences:

Upon slicing a picked mushroom in half, the Destroying angel is completely white, while button mushrooms have brown gills and greyish flesh.
Destroying angel grows on mossy woods and lives symbioticaly with spruce. Various button mushrooms grow on open.
Destroying angel has white/cream colored gills and spores, gills that are attached to the cap, but not the stalk. Champignon has brown gills.
Destroying angel has at the part of the stalk closest to the ground a little cup which is a leftover piece of the veil that covers the mushroom during the button stage of growth. Champignon does not.
Some Amanitas have a ring or skirt on the stalk which is another remnant of the veil.
Button mushrooms have pleasant odour while destroying angel has foul.

Again, however, if you are not an expert mushroom hunter, leave wild mushrooms alone. It is better to avoid taking any risks which may prove fatal. NEVER taste the mushroom, as destroying angel has very mild and by no means unpleasant taste - even one Amanita virosa cap may prove fatal to adult human being.

The best rule is that a mushroom hunter should never eat or offer to others a mushroom unless, based on study and experience, he/she can identify its exact genus and species and rule out all known look-alikes. Mushroom hunters must also know what mushrooms commonly grow locally; exclusive reliance on guidebooks from other regions of the country or world can be misleading, possibly tragically so.

External links

Basidiomycetes | Edible mushrooms | Mushroom types