Gnome:
The Oyster Mushrooms.
A big “thank you” to all the readers of the AgReport who have come back with feedback and comments regarding this column on mushrooms. Taking this feedback into account, I would like to change tack this issue and forget about Mayan mushrooms (I promise we will come back to them) for a while and move onto and describe some mushrooms which are eminently edible and fortuitously fruiting at this time of the year.
So, let us talk briefly on: Pleorotus ostreatus or the Oyster Mushroom. Most people have heard of and many have sampled commercial oyster mushrooms before, while the true fungophile has, of course, found and picked their own. Let me encourage you then to start looking around; I have located, collected, cooked and devoured about five pounds of oyster mushrooms in the past month after the habitual cycle of two-to-three day Toledo rains followed two-to-three days of sunshine. Depending on the exact length of the rain and sunshine periods, different flushes of oyster mushrooms are stimulated to fruit. The oyster mushroom is adaptable to fruit on a variety of substrates but in its natural habitat it tends to be found on logs or pieces of wood. The patches I have found have been on Golden Plum, Craboo and Moho logs or fallen branches; it also seems to like coming up on dried coconuts that have subsequently become wet with rains and the stumps of dead coconut palms.
This time around, I shall desist from typing out an “official scientific” description as I have to grudgingly admit that only a fungophile or scientist would appreciate the neurotic exactness of such a description. Having said this, I think that it is always worthwhile taking a spore print of any mushroom that is collected, after all, confirming that the spore print of the “oyster” mushroom you have picked is white is reassuring and is one of the essential steps in definitive identification (all the spore prints of oyster mushrooms I have found in Belize are white; the identification guides say: white to pale lilac or lilac-gray).
In terms of edibility, they are delicious: breaded and fried, stir fried in little slices, sautéed in butter, et cetera, et cetera…the flavour is reminiscent of sea-food. Many of you may find the medical properties of oyster mushrooms interesting: studies have shown that Pleorotus ostreatus and other closely related species naturally produce Lovastatin, which is a drug approved for the treatment of excessive blood cholesterol. Oyster mushrooms have also been shown to have tumour inhibiting effects in animal control models; whether this translates into a useful effect in human treatment is, as of yet, unclear but it doesn’t sound like eating oyster mushrooms on a regular basis would be a bad thing!!
Go forth and spread the spores!