SavorThis delicious fungus grows on hardwood and can help make biofuel. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of the shiitake.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren.
Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode for you about chatake mushrooms.
Yes, and it is a fun one. Oh yeah. Yes. Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Lord, Nope, nope. I was just kind of looking for episode ideas and realized that we hadn't done any about mushrooms in a really long time, and I always want to talk about fun guy, so yes. And then you pointed out that it ties in perfectly with the release of the Last of Us Season.
Two, Yes, which was hilarious because the Last of Us Part two is my favorite game of all time. I almost suggested a mushroom topic to you, but I was like, my fan, I'm pushing my.
Fandom too hard. And then you suggested this, and I was like, well, there we go, right.
Yeah, yeah, it might have premiered in the past by the time you're listening to this. I don't know when this is publishing or when you're listening, but here we are. Yes, and I am very excited about it.
I am too, Ah.
I do love hit take mushrooms. I use them pretty frequently. I have to say, I remember exactly the first time I heard about them, though, and it was in the two thousand, two thousand and one.
Movies by Kids.
Okay, I haven't seen that movie since it was in theaters, which tells you how impactful this joke was to me. But to get around saying the S word, they said, holy chittake mushrooms wow, And I just remember it, and that was the first time I had heard of them, and I was like, I gotta try these.
Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
That's amazing, well well known, well known film Spy Kids a culinary influence in ways that we never previously.
Indeed, indeed, well you can.
See other episodes like we have a general mushroom episode. We've also done specific episodes on Chantarell's and morals and truffles. Also, we talk about in some of our Ashville episodes and have some tape in there from this truly magical, no drug pun intended mushroom walk that we went on with a forager by the name of Alan when we were in Ashville and weird lovely day it was.
It was fun to revisit that memory. I haven't thought about that in a while, but I so I was doing this research and I was like, Oh, what a wonder full time that was.
It was just we were very stressed out and had a very full schedule, and this nice fellow just took us on the longest foraging walk that we could possibly conceive of, and it was so delightful.
It was. It was really delightful.
As soon as we got over the fact that we were like, we're meeting a stranger in the woods.
Yes, let's do it. It all worked out, it really did. But I guess this brings us to our question. Sure, chatake mushrooms, what are they?
Well, Chatake mushrooms are a type of mushroom that grows a brown cap with a creamy white gills underneath on a sort of medium sized stem. They're kind of savory, earthy in flavor, and chewy toothsome in texture when they're cooked, which they should be by the way. They can be cooked though, anyway that you like them, roasted or grilled, or maybe simmered in a soup or stew, and they'll really soak up any sauces or other flavoring that you cook them with. They can also be dried and or you know, dried and powdered, whereupon their flavor is kind of concentrated and intensified to something very savory and maybe a little bit funky. Uh. Dried take can be reconstituted for cooking with pretty much as usual, or used to make broth, to add like a savory flavor to all kinds of things. They're they're a good, strong mushroom, like a like a stern, like a studious mushroom, like a like like a firm handshake. There's something satisfying about it, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I like that take knows what it's about.
Yeah.
It's confident, yeah yeah, yeah, puts you at ease and it's confidence right right.
It's not like some of those mushy mushrooms, you know.
No, not the shatake.
And I should say here that when we say chatake, we mean specifically a species called Lentinula a dotes. I didn't look up how to say that. We're just gonna roll with it. But there are other species within the genus. Currently nine are recognized, and they're also sometimes called chatake. They're different species that grow natively across Asia and the Americas. We'll get into that in the history section a little bit, but yes, so mushrooms I love a fungus. Fungi are biologically fascinating because they have a bunch of features that are plant like, but also a bunch of features that are animal like, so you know, like a plant, they grow from sort of seed type structures called spores and develop a root like system called mycelium in whatever medium they're growing in. In Chatake's case, they like growing in dead hardwood like a fallen trees or cut logs or even sawdust. But unlike a plant, they can't photosynthesize. They get energy by excreting digestive enzymes and then absorbing nutrients from compounds that those enzymes break down, in this case in wood. They also breathe oxygen and release carbon dioxide like we do. And also their cells grow like plants, but they do contain kiten, which is an animal cell thing. I've said it before, I will say it again, WTF nature. But anyway, when ash take fungus has a good mycolium structure going on, it will put off fruiting bodies that is mushrooms, which are what produce the spores, and start the cycle all over again. They do grow wild people also cultivate them a few different ways, like drilling holes and logs and placing a culture of my cilium strands in there. It's called spawn. You can also spawn them on sawdust blocks. Left to their own devices, chataki will fruit a couple times a year for a few years running, though they can be shocked with cold water to induce fruiting more frequently. Shockey mushrooms can range in size from about three to six sish inches in diameter across the cap. When they're ready for harvest, it's like seven to fourteen centimeters or so. The stock is tougher in texture than the cap and the little skinnier than the stock on like a like like button mushrooms. So depending on your your tastes for toughness, they could be sliced thin or maybe saved to make stock something tasty like that.
Mm yes, yes, yes, yes, Oh, and I guess I should specify for people who don't know the last of us. What causes the infection is corteous EPs is a fungus.
That's why it's related.
So very cool, also kind of kind of potential for freakiness.
Yeah, love it.
Okay, So how about the nutrition by themselves? Ushtake are pretty good for you, you know, good punch of fiber, bunch of minerals other micronutrients, pair with a fat and protein to help keep you going. They are being investigated for all kinds of possible health benefits. I am personally exhausted by the amount of breathless, slightly scienceless press that mushrooms have been getting over the past couple of years. But you know savor motto. Before ingesting medicinal quantities of anything, you should consult a medical professional who is not us, because bodies are complicated and more research needs to be done.
Yes.
Also note here the reason that I said that you should cook sh take is that eating them uncooked can cause this toxic reaction in some people that causes a really gnarly rash among other symptoms. It's only like two percent of people. Still, why take that risk? Just cook them? It's tasty.
Yeah, yeah, Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Chatake are the second most cultivated mushroom in the world after like white button portobello mushrooms, I believe, accounting for some twenty two percent of global mushroom production. Dan, I know, right. Monetary numbers can be so weird, so okay. As of twenty twenty two, ish I read that global sales of chatake mushrooms hit seventy nine million dollars, maybe because I also saw numbers higher by a whole factor of ten, so who knows. I don't know either way. It seems like China produces most of the world's supply, like somewhere over eighty percent, and that South Korea and the United States buy the most. For a long time, dried has been the largest market segment, but fresh has been catching up and is maybe edging it out a little bit recently. They can get pricey in the United States. Chatake can range from around eight to eighteen dollars a pound, depending on how labor intensively they are harvested and or grown. But there is a premium type out of Japan called the white flower chatake I believe for the way that the skin on the on the caps splits and appears to be sort of flower like, and wild harvested ones of those can go for one hundred and sixty dollars a pound.
Wow, yeah, well, listeners, let us know.
Yeah, oh man, I want to know about your very fancy shatake mushroom adventures.
Yes, I did see some tourists, like definitely in Japan, but I even saw them around the world, Like you can go visit Chatake farms and stuff, so.
Let us know, yeah, anything like that.
Oh yeah, absolutely, And they do have a really interesting history.
Oh yeah, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
Disclaimer before we start, as kind of mentioned, there's some taxonomic confusion with the chatak to the point that there's actual research being done into it now over what people were talking about, what exactly people were talking about over the years.
So it's one of those fun things. It's one of those fun things about especially something already kind of weird and tricksy like mushrooms. Yes, where you're just like, oh, is this what we've been talking about? Wait, what are you talking about? Like yeah, and a lot of that scientifically has been going on.
Yeah, it's actually really interesting and you have any interest in it, I recommend looking it up because people are looking into it, they're talking about it. Oh yeah, fascinating stuff. But it does make tracing the history for researchers and does podcasters a little difficult.
Okay.
That being said, the most common ancestor of the chatak dates back as far as thirty million years, but some put it way further back than that. Wild chatakes are indigenous to modern day East Asia, though new research widens the area to Asia Australasia and also suggests that perhaps separate lineages originated in the Americas and Madagascar. That is where the taxonomic confusion comes in. Okay, Anyway, before cultivation, chatake were convenient for folks to harvest because once you found a place and harvested, the mushrooms would generally spread, growing more mushrooms in the same spot.
So if you found a spot, you're doing well. Mm hm.
And then at one point during the seven hundreds CE in Japan, people figured out that shatakes would grow on the cutlogs of the she tree.
Yeah.
Yeah, that the name shatake comes from she as in this type of hardwood evergreen tree that's related to like beeches and oaks that's common in East Asia, and take being a Japanese word for mushroom.
Yes, which, by the way, I had a very work based panic dream.
Oh no, where I was like, wait, it is my.
Whole outline wrong? Am I being redundant by saying shittake mushrooms? And I looked it up and it's like, yes, but people do it.
So yeah. And also I personally, when you're talking about the actual mushroom, it's I don't know, like it's weird with fung guy, if you're referring to like the fruiting body versus the mycelium. Anyway, Yeah, yeah, yes, but no that I did.
I did look into it. But listeners again, right in, right in.
Historians will leave that chtacks were first cultivated in China between eleven hundred to one thousand CE, where these mushrooms were highly regarded both culinarily and medicinally.
Yeah. Also, this makes them one of the oldest cultivated mushrooms.
And I also realized, Lauren, we haven't talked about aphrodisiacs in a while.
You know, we haven't done that in a while.
But I did see in some places that it was used as an afrodisiac. But I didn't particularly trust any of those places, but I did see it.
So yeah, Okay, I mean you can probably assume that literally everything we've ever talked about has been pointed to as an aphrodisiac at some point.
Yes, even lettuce, which at one point was an anti afrodisiac.
Yeah, but at one point.
Anyway, Okay, I think that speaks all more to humans than to any potential aperdisiac qualities of any single item agreed agreed.
Over time, the chatak spread across Asia and in several cultures and cuisines. It earned a significance and a fondness When immigrating. Many people from these regions would transport chatake spores with them to cultivate in their new home. Because of the popularity of this mushroom in Japan, their were concerns about overharvesting it, so some people started working on more sustainable harvesting methods, especially on larger scales. One person of note was a Japanese horticulturist, Sato Churio. He is credited with pulling together the first Japanese guide focusing on cultivating shataki mushrooms and standing techniques in seventeen ninety six. The first known instance of chatake with today's meaning in the written record took place in eighteen seventy seven. That would have been in the English language yes, my collegist's doctor shows up. Bureau Manira figured out how to grow shatake onlogs away from forest, making cultivation easier. In nineteen fourteen, farmers adopted this method pretty quickly, placing shatake mushrooms directly on logs, which launched large scale cultivation.
There were some.
Limitations though, It could take two years for the mushrooms to grow, and once they did, they typically only sprouted twice annually. On top of that, if the logs were outside, the mushrooms could be damaged by weather or animals. In the nineteen forties, this method was largely replaced in Japan by the sawdust method, so sawdust was mixed with nutrients along with the mycilium of the chatakes. This allowed for indoor storage and a much shorter time before the mushrooms appeared, about six months, and it also eliminated the limitations around harvest times, so folks could grow these mushrooms all year.
Long, which is nice.
This was when the commercial shatak industry took off in Japan. However, some claim that this method results in a loss of flavor. I can't say, I'll just say people like to fight about it.
They do.
They do.
There has been research into it, and I read one like independent blind tasting panel found that like traditional hardwood grown chatake are more flavorful. But but you know, human senses are weird.
They are.
And I'm always fascinated by taste tests because i just feel like people experience a lot of things so differently.
I don't know.
Outside of Japan, written mentions and descriptions of a variety of species of shatake started popping up in places like Australia and the Americas throughout the eighteen and nineteen hundreds. The US Department of Agriculture lifted a ban on importing chataki spores in nineteen seventy two, and that marked the beginning of the US chataka industry, and chataka's really took off in the US in the nineteen nineties.
This was due to a couple of things.
Improved cultivation techniques, increased awareness and interest in Asian cuisine from non Asian folks, increased interest in vegetarianism or plant based meals things like that.
Yeah, And over the past few decades there's also been an increased interest from farmers and other landowners here in the States. To add value to their existing land and growing things like chaitake. Mushrooms can use resources like fallen branches and trees that weren't being used without endangering living plants. Like shatake fungus isn't going to bother anything else.
Right, As we've been alluding to, there's been some interesting research around the chatake genome, both to better understand its evolution and the diversity of the species, but also because the chatake could be useful in breaking down the sturdy vibrus parts of wood, including lignin which throws a wrench, and using wood for things like biofuel.
Yeah, both the chatake as we have been discussing it today and also other fungi in its genus. These mushrooms are what are called white rot fungi, which are basically like the only buddies we know of that can break down the toughest parts of wood. So they're a really important for the carbon cycle, but b can be bent to cool stuff like biofuel production.
Again, so cool, love it. Oh, good guy, I could have read a lot more research about this. I was fascinated.
We'll just have to do more more mushroom episodes in the future.
Yes, agreed.
Okay, Well, for now, I think that's what we have to say about chatake mushrooms.
It is. We would love to hear from you all though, if you have. We didn't talk that much about it as a food product, I suppose, but so if you guys have any any any memories or recipes or anything like that, if you have grown some. I love those mushroom kits anyway, Yes, we would love to hear from you. We do already have some listener mail for you, though, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from one more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And we're back with snooth.
Mushrooms are really cool, they are, yes, Okay. Our crote soda bread, especially warm, is a wonderful butter delivery vehicle. I haven't baked any for a long time, but we'll need to get it back into rotation. Also love it with a nice seafood chowder. Having it sop up all that deliciousness is a bonus. I don't recall ever seeing it with other things added. But well, we'll need to consider trying it. I think we should find a way to open a small hug a yack business. It will need to be further north, but I think we can make it work. Like someone else mentioned, the only yack items I have seen are dog treats. But now I need to see if there is anyone who is importing it in any way. Want to try try that cheese. The history on tea bags is interesting. We have a mix of loose tea and tea bags in our house. The bags are generally mass produced simple things such as peppermint or green tea. Otherwise we use loose surprise, the question about squeezing or not squeezing the bag did not come up. People definitely have opinions on that. I tend to do a light squeeze on mine after pulling it out to get the extra flavor, but some people will shoot you death glares if you do that. I know how you love strong opinions. Hearing classics, it's always fun. Forgot about some of the stories behind cheese puffs and breadfruit has me craving it again. Maybe I just need to go back to Saint Kits.
I mean sounds like usually we all just need to go.
Do you just need to go?
Oh? My goodness, I did not know this about I didn't know there was drama behind squeezing or not squeezing the bag.
I'm delighted to find it out.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I was a right. I mean, like I guess, I guess sometimes I do that and sometimes I don't. But ooh, I like that there's drama.
I know I do too. I feel like every choice you make with tea, Oh yeah, this rifer, somebody'd be like. I mean, I would love to hug a yack. The only thing is we've got to make sure that yak is into it. So I don't want to bother ready acts of course.
I mean I think, like knowing what I know, I mean like most cows are pretty into you know, like affectionate human contact, so I would assume that yaks are as well. But you know, it depends on the yak. It depends on their mood.
Yeah, we would just have to make sure we're taking the yak's mood and emotions into account.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And I have to say, Lauren and I are both struggling with some stuffy faces, little rough voices. This is always to our super producer Andrew. I could really use a nice seafood chowder right now.
Oh oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, I said.
So nice. Oh my goodness. Well, Joe wrote, oh do I have opinions on tea? Which is hilarious because for most of my life I associated it with being sick. I called it sad hot water. That all changed when I went to England for grad school, but not at first. I remember ordering black tea from a Starbucks at the airport in Newcastle, and the poor thing was absolutely scorched, way too hot, and so so better. From then on I learned the importance of brewing tea at the right temperature and for the right amount of time. It was a social thing for the graduate students in our offices. Each office had a kettle and we were very serious about taking our tea breaks. My second office was particularly crazy about tea because we had quite the stash, enough so that it perfumed the small room. But even then, tea was just a thing that got me through writing my dissertation. I drank it by the bucketful because I'm not a coffee person. In fact, everyone around me knows that things are pretty dire if I turned to coffee rather than tea. Once I finished grad school and started having more than a poor grad student budget, that's when the journey to whole leaf tea and single origin tea began. Before that, it was all about the convenience of bagged tea, and I was drinking lots of flavored teas as well, And now I find those to be too sweet most of the time, and I really love the nuance in single origin whole leaf tea. You get a lot of bang for your buck too, because you can usually steep them over and over again, and the flavor profile changes a little more with each one. That's really not possible with tea bags. They're pretty much one and done. I love light oohlungs that can be soft and milky, darker uhlungs that are rich and vegetable, green teas that are almost nutty and grassy, and so on. At some point, I want to buy a Gung Fu tea set. There is something about the ritual of it, the social nature of pouring tea for every and having a chat while taking slow SIPs that just seems like it would be an ocean of calm in these crazy times. And tea is good for you. A colleague of mine recently did a talk that explained to the chemistry of tea and how they remove free radicals from your body. Green tea is especially good for this. So now I'm off to bruesome for myself a Chinese green. If you're wondering.
That sounds nice, It does nice, it does.
I do love getting into, you know, any kind of specific thing and really appreciating the differences and flavors between slightly different products.
Yes, and your descriptions are fantastic, and you're right. I know we talked about it in the dim sum episode. Even though tea can sometimes make me feel a little nauseated because my body, not because of the tea, I do love that feeling of like sharing.
Tea and just talking with people.
Oh yeah, it does feel like a ritual and kind of an oasis and it's just so nice. So I hope that you got a relaxation out of your and I have.
I do think that.
When I went to the UK the first time I try I was I'm a coffee person, so I was like, oh.
It was really good.
I remember trying it and being like, oh, okay, this is I love this actually, Oh.
Yeah, yeah, right for me like I'm used to the amount of caffeine in a coffee situation, and so I can get a little cranky first thing in the morning if I cannot obtain a coffee of a certain strength. But that being said, right, yeah, I oh, I love tea. I love I love a good cup of tea, and I love all of those moments where you know, like, I don't feel like we even though we do have like a like an around the water cooler like culture in the United States, it's not the same thing.
No, it's not an Interestingly, this kind of relates to an article I read for upcoming topic we're doing on crispy Creams for that we we'll talk about in there about how we don't in America. We're just like go go go.
Right, right, So, like break, what's that? The only acceptable break is cigarette smoking? What?
Right? Like get your doughnut through the drive through?
You're not going to go it? Like yeah, basically and tea time good. Feel so nice to have those moments of like, let me, yeah.
Just in this moment for a second, I'm gonna sit it down.
I'm going to have a drink, I'm going to have a snack. It's going to be great.
Yeah, yes, yeah, it is lovely. Well. Thank you so much to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can our emails hello at saberpod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Blue Sky and Instagram. I'm at saver Pod and we do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Pagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots of more good things are coming your way
