Food talk
Mushrooms for all seasons

Mushroom sadabahar can be a tempting main course or a side dish. The colourful visage is a bonus, says Pushpesh Pant

Mushrooms, wrapped in myths, are the stuff magic is made of. No, we are not talking about the variety celebrated by the learned writer Aldous Huxley that after a bite induces hallucinations, opening doors of perception to heaven and hell. Nor are we referring here to priceless truffles worth much more than their weight in gold, sniffed out by gifted pigs.

We in India have for generations sworn by the Kashmiri guchchi, no less subtly fragrant than the much more famous zafran. When one was a child, one was ritually warned against falling prey to temptations of the wild—one still shudders and shivers recalling tragic tales of innocents perishing after consuming delicious chiyun, Kumaoni dialect for mushrooms in the wild.

Frankly, these horror stories kept us from enjoying mushrooms for years. It was only when Chandralal Sahji, the indefatigable pioneer, started growing mushrooms, making them available round the year in Nainital that one really came of age, so to speak. Before that what one had mostly tasted was the canned in brine variety that formed the base of the mushroom mutter masala dished out when a special guest turned up unannounced.

But no need to beat around the bush. Once we fell for the fungi, it was the beginning of a life-long affair. Show us the buttons, oysters, shitake-jap or the black Chinese variety and you can’t drag us away from that spot even screaming and kicking. Good friend Jiggs introduced us to the joys of a mushroom kima and dear Indrajit never tires of trying out fusion fantasies blending Indian aromatics with Italian pasta, enriched of course with myriad mushrooms.

We have long ago reached the conclusion that mushrooms are, to mix metaphors, men for all seasons brilliantly dazzling one and all like diamonds forever. Recently we drove past Solan, no longer a sleepy town in Himachal Pradesh, where we noticed a score or more of billboards announcing that we were entering or leaving the mushroom nagari. Let the mushroom lovers rejoice, the plebian kukurmutta has dethroned the patrician whiskey that was once synonymous with this kasba.

So, here it is looking at Solan. This week’s recipe: mushroom sadabahar. Easy to cook and extremely low in calories, zilch cholesterol, a treat for waist watchers, it is highly recommended. It can be a tempting main course or a side dish that can never be confused with a second fiddle. The colourful visage is a bonus.

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