It’s fairly easy to grasp why Japan is a mushroom wonderland. Two thirds of the country is forested, providing both trees for shade and the organic substrate in which fungi thrive. The only other thing you need is sufficient water, which is arguably Japan’s most bountiful natural resource. From there, spores and mycelium do the rest.
Japan is in fact the second-largest mushroom producer in the world. Even in the smallest of Japanese supermarkets (and many convenience stores) shiitake are ubiquitous, and you can usually count on at least shimeji (beech mushrooms) and enoki also being available.
All this fungi begs the question: How is a home cook in Japan to make culinary sense of all these varieties at their fingertips? For that, “Mushroom Gastronomy: The Art of Cooking with Mushrooms” by mycological gourmand Krista Towns is exactly the mind mulch you need.
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