Mushrooms and Thai food

[Bamboo Grove]

Autumn is great time for mushrooms in Finland . The forests are full of them and there's plenty of variety. Today we went to the woods again and in the evening the missus cooked some het phat kraphao. Hve to say that was delicious. The mushroom she used for this dish was (Cortinarius caperatus syn. Rozites caperata). The variety of mushrooms in Thailand isn´t that big. The ones I used to like the best were the Chinese winter mushrooms (het hom). How do you like your mushrooms?

[migrant]

I love mushrooms! Often sauteed with a little butter and garlic. Sometimes some marsala wine to add a different flavor Add some cream, boil it down some and it's great over eggs or toast

[Ratsima]

It wasn't that long ago that the only commonly seen mushroom in Thai cuisine was the straw mushroom, เห็ดฟาง (het fang).

Now the variety is quite impressive. Thai cooks have been quick to capitalize on this, incorporating various mushrooms into traditional dishes. One of my favorites is tom yam het, ต้มยำเห็ด.

[Takiap]

Yes I agree, there seems be quite a large variety of mushrooms available in Thailand now.

Also, there's a two or three week period in Thailand where a certain type of mushroom grows on the hills/mountains, and the locals get really enthusiastic about picking these. In fact, if you're not quick, you miss out completely. Apparently they cannot be farmed, so when they appear in the wild, loads of people pick them and then sell them, and I've been told they're very expensive.

My MIL and/or FIL pick them as well, but everything gets eaten at home or traded with friends. Personally, I prefer they plain mushrooms which are commonly found in Thai dishes. Very healthy as well I believe.

[PeteC]

Shivers up the spine that the pickers don't go crazy and cause a mass extinction in some town. Maybe best to employ a food taster during mushroom season? Pete

[JD]

I used to pick mushrooms every season in the UK, I watched a show about mushroom picking in The New Forest earlier in the year, made feel a little bit homesick.

There are several different kinds of wild edible mushrooms in Thailand.

At the moment it is the right season for one of my all time favourites from the UK 'Chanterelles'.

My wife calls them ‘Hed Kamin’, a little bit more apricoty in smell than the UK chantarelles and packed with flavour. The wife has got the in-laws on the ball and I can expect a box full to arrive EMS anytime soon. Lovely with some new potatoes and salmon.

[STEVE G]

I used to pick mushrooms every season in the UK,...

We used to pick them off the airfields when I was in the Navy, being in maintenance we were always up before anyone else. We would put a bit of butter in them and bung them in the microwave for a few seconds as we didn't have any other way of cooking them but they were very good.

[kendo]

My wife bakes large portobello mushrooms with Shropshire Blue cheese, pine nuts, and a dusting of Parmesan cheese, I can tell you they are devine as a starter.

Kendo.

[Nereus]

Another bit of nostalgia. As a kid growing up on a farm in Oz I have a vivid memory of my Father picking mushrooms and bringing them home in his hat! My Mother would cook them as JD and migrant have mentioned, and I must say that in all the years that I have been in Thailand I have never had them cooked in that manner. In fact, I have never seen any like them here.

It was also taken as the start of winter and the end of ( a short) autumm, as they only apeared after good rain.

There are many different types of mushrooms, some of them very toxic, and it was always drummed into me to be very wary of any that were not exactly as shown in the following link.

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/objtwr/impor ... s_2011.pdf

[STEVE G]

My wife bakes large portobello mushrooms with Shropshire Blue cheese, pine nuts, and a dusting of Parmesan cheese, I can tell you they are devine as a starter.

Kendo.

Many years ago I used to go to a pub in the Cotswolds that did something similar with Stilton cheese, it was one of the finest things that I've ever eaten.

[kendo]

This was a really sad story from a couple of years back quite close to home
Woman died of mushroom poisoning
A woman died after eating death cap fungi she mistook for edible mushrooms, an inquest has heard.

Amphon Tuckey, 39, was pronounced dead at her home address in Carisbrooke High Street, in Newport, Isle of Wight, in September 2008.

The Thai national, known as Juny, had eaten the mushrooms, picked at Ventnor Botanic Gardens, at the Newport home of her niece and nephew.

The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Liver damage

Newport Coroner's Court heard that Kannika Tuckey, known as Pern, and her husband Paul Tuckey, picked the mushrooms and then invited Juny, who was married to Paul's brother Michael, to eat them.

Pern also became seriously ill with liver damage after eating a small amount of the mushrooms and spent several weeks in hospital.

She told the inquest she had been anxious about trying the mushrooms but had been reassured when her aunt ate them.

Juny had joked that if the mushrooms were poisonous then "they would both die together", she said.

The hearing heard Juny initially ate a very small amount of the mushrooms and waited for five minutes to see if they had any adverse effect.

She believed that if the mushrooms, which resembled ones she ate in her native Thailand, were poisonous they would turn the rice a different colour.

Juny then cooked the mushrooms in a herb sauce and ate most of them herself, with Pern only eating three or four.

Raw pork sausage

The inquest heard both women fell ill in the early hours of the next morning with Juny suffering severe vomiting and diarrhoea.

An ambulance was called but when Juny was asked what she had eaten she never mentioned the mushrooms and only said she had eaten a raw pork sausage - a Thai speciality.

Her GP visited the next morning and diagnosed gastroenteritis. She told him she had eaten mushrooms but that they were ones that she had eaten before.

Michael told the inquest he had warned her against eating wild mushrooms.

He said said he thought she had not told him about the mushrooms because she "knew I would be angry".

Juny's condition deteriorated and she died the next night with her husband by her side.

Toxicology tests showed she died of poisoning caused by eating the death cap mushrooms.

Isle of Wight Coroner John Matthews said it was "unfortunate" Juny had not told paramedics that she had eaten the mushrooms, but said no medical intervention could have saved her life.

"They all thought at the time she had a case of gastroenteritis and that the patient should recover," he said.

The inquest heard that half a cap of a death cap mushroom was enough to kill a human.

He said the death cap mushrooms, which are common throughout the UK, could easily have been mistaken for common field mushrooms.

Kendo.

[hhfarang]

I have vivid memories of inanimate objects coming to life and being able to "see" sounds after picking and eating mushrooms back in the 70's ...

[richard]

Part of a nights haul harvested overnight in an Isaan village ready to be sold at the roadside to passing HiSo's

[PeteC]

^ I simply wouldn't trust any of them at all unless I had a mushroom ID book with me. Mistakes here big or small are simply dismissed with a mai pen rai. Harvested at night, in the dark? Sorry, I've read too many horror stories like Kendo's during my life. Pete

[barrys]

My wife calls them ‘Hed Kamin’, a little bit more apricoty in smell than the UK chantarelles and packed with flavour. The wife has got the in-laws on the ball and I can expect a box full to arrive EMS anytime soon. Lovely with some new potatoes and salmon.

Hi JD
That sounds fantastic,but pleeeeeaaaase tell me where to get new potatoes here.....