Brazilian mushrooms, finally, start to supply the chefs

Shitake, shimeji, portobelo and paris mushroom, you must know. And Macrocybe, have you heard? From Favolus brasiliensis, perhaps? Nor of Lactarius deliciosus?

These are just three of the 70 wild mushrooms proven to be edible that occur in Brazilian territory. Some are the size of a fingernail, others weigh as much as two kilos. They vary in color, texture, shape and, of course, in taste — so much so that they have become an obsession for researchers and have already entered the chefs’ radar.

Professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo and coordinator of the IFungiLab, Nelson Menolli Jr. spends much of his time immersed in the forests of the Southeast region hunting them. Summer is the most anticipated season—as soon as the rains begin, in November, species start to sprout. “I’ve already collected a set of Macrocybes that weighed eight kilos,” Menolli says enthusiastically.

Brazilian wild mushrooms have not yet been domesticated, which means that there is no commercial scale production in a controlled environment. For now, the way is to look for them where they spontaneously appear — an activity that has already become a tourist attraction.

Marcelo Sulzbacher, a professor at the Center for Rural Sciences at the Federal University of Santa Maria, organizes “hunts” for tourists, usually in autumn, when they are abundant in both the Southeast and the South.

They are hands-on workshops, in which participants enter the forest to collect mushrooms and end up at the table, tasting delicacies prepared by a chef.

Several are already scheduled for 2022. On May 29, Sulzbacher conducts one at the Parador Hampel hotel, in São Francisco de Paula (RS), organized by Brasil Food Safaris. At the same time, with no set dates yet, events will also take place at Entre Vilas, in São Bento do Sapucaí (SP), and at
Casa Amadú, in Cunha (SP).

But having a specialist in conducting the hunt, warns Sulzbacher, is essential — a matter of life and death, without exaggeration, since Brazilian forests are also rich in toxic mushrooms, which can even kill.

When it comes to mushrooms, appearance is deceiving. One of the most beautiful wild species, Amanita muscaria, with its red hat with white acorns reminiscent of the Smurfs’ houses, has psychoactive compounds and, warns the specialist, can cause serious intoxication.

Lucky that there are many harmless and delicious species left to try. For chef Fabricio Goulart, who leads the gastronomic phase of Sulzbacher’s hunts, Lactarius deliciosus
it’s unbeatable in flavor. “It’s orange, very fleshy, with a texture that resembles a steak.”

The fattest ones, teaches Goulart, are great on the grill, whole or cut into steaks, seasoned only with salt and oil. The smallest can all go to the pan together, sautéed with garlic, onion and herbs — a dish he called mushroom.

There are also many wild mushrooms in the Amazon region. Chef at the Banzeiro restaurant, with units in Manaus and São Paulo, Felipe Schaedler has been experimenting with several of them since 2012 and even cultivated the Lentinula raphanica species on wooden logs.

Every month, Schaedler buys about two kilos of dried fungi, which yield 16 kilos after hydrated and give rise to a succulent mushroom rice. “Studies show that hydration in cold water reaches the peak of flavor. I leave it to soak for about half an hour, cook the rice in this broth and, at the end, add the mushrooms”, he teaches.

Some species that Brazilians are used to importing also sprout in our forests. This is the case of Boletus edulis, known as porcini, considered a delicacy in Italy. Author of the book “Primavera Fungi – Guide to Fungi in the South of Brazil” (Via Sapiens), biologist Jeferson Timm finds him in droves in hunting trips and courses he has been promoting since 2017.

“We’ve already collected 50 kilos in a day, over a few hours. It’s a culture that costs nothing and people barely know it,” says Timm.

Mushrooms of the Suillus genus can also be found here, the same to which the funghi secchi belongs. “In Chile, the production of these dried mushrooms is a powerful business and, here, it hasn’t even started to be developed. My objective is to give courses so that family farmers can supply restaurants,” warns Timm.

The consumption and production of fungi by Brazilians are still in their infancy, in the assessment of Daniel Gomes, from the National Association of Mushroom Producers.

Although the cultivation began in the 1940s, at the hands of Asian immigrants, the reserve of the market made the sector dominated by the mushroom-de-Paris, harvested small, for the manufacture of preserves.

“Some countries produce high quality preserves, but here quantity reigned: after being cooked with sodium metabisulfite so as not to darken, the mushrooms go into a solution of salt and citric acid and lose 40% of their weight. They turn into a tasteless rubber it was this production model that boosted consumption in Brazil”, he says.

In the first decade of the 2000s, Chinese canned food flooded the national market and left Brazilian producers no other alternative, luckily for us, to invest in the sale of fresh products.

The last census of the sector, in 2016, confirmed the existence of more than 500 producers in the state of São Paulo alone, but Gomes estimates that this number has doubled since then. Now, he risks, the wild promise to start a new era for the national fungiculture.

If it’s up to biologist Mariana Drewinski, it won’t be long before we can find mushrooms native to Brazil in supermarkets. In her doctoral work in plant biodiversity and the environment at the Environmental Research Institute of São Paulo, she is studying the domestication of four species with great gastronomic potential.

Drewinski has even found that they grow well at an average temperature of 30°C, which would eliminate the need for refrigeration — quite a bit of news for the productive sector, since fungiculture is an activity suited to small producers, including within urban centers,
without great investment power. It’s wait and see.

Fungi are the subject of books and documentary

In “The Plot of Life – How Fungi Build the World” (Phosphorus publisher, 368 pages, R$ 89.90), biologist Merlin Sheldrake talks about the role of more than 2 million species of fungi in the world and their place in the evolution of species.

“Mushrooms – Yanomani Food Encyclopedia” (Editora ISA/Instituto Socioambiental, 108 pages, R$ 65) is a detailed catalog of edible mushrooms that occur in the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in Roraima.

Available on Netflix, the documentary “Fantastic Fungi”, directed by Louie Schwartzbert, shows the incredible discoveries regarding edible and psychoactive mushrooms