National Mushroom Month

Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozens that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.

Paul Stamets

Ahhh mushrooms, is there anything they don’t make better? Well, there are those who may not appreciate their finer qualities of taste and texture, but those people just don’t know what’s good.

Whether grilled with butter and set atop a hamburger or stuffed with cheese and breading and slow cooked for ultimate flavor, mushrooms have a place on every table.

National Mushroom Month was created to raise awareness not just of their culinary uses, but of the important role they play in many industries, some of them quite surprising.

History of National Mushroom Month

To understand the history of National Mushroom Month, one should perhaps understand exactly what a mushroom is. When most people think of a mushroom, they’re either thinking of the white button mushrooms commonly used in cuisine, or the red topped, white speckled mushrooms that are taken recreationally.

But what, exactly, is a mushroom? What we think of as the mushroom isn’t actually the mushroom, instead, it is the fruiting body (you could just think of it as the fruit) of a fungus found in the ground. The mushrooms fruiting body is formed so that it can spread its spores and reproduce, but it just so happens that certain members of this family are absolutely delicious. Mushrooms have an incredible variety of uses that don’t stop in the kitchen.

While high in Vitamin D, an important resource for processing calcium and making strong bones, they also have medicinal properties. Some mushrooms are used for dyeing wool, with surprisingly vibrant colors available in their spectrum. There also mushrooms that are used for medicinal purposes, with certain varieties exhibiting anti-cancer properties.

Additionally, mushrooms have been used for cleaning up human messes, as they are exceptionally good at pulling radiation out of the ground. National Mushroom Month celebrates all of these facts about the mushroom and seeks to raise awareness about these incredible fungi and all they do for us.

How To Celebrate National Mushroom Month

It all starts with expanding your culinary pallet by picking up varieties of mushroom you may never have tried before. Don’t go collecting these in the wild on your own though!

Some mushrooms can only be enjoyed once in a lifetime (because they’re poisonous, and you’ll die) so make sure if you go wildcrafting mushrooms you take an expert with you. Thankfully there are abundant varieties available through the supermarket, at farmer’s markets, and even in specialty stores!