Where does everyone get their mushroom?

All summer I have been getting my mushrooms from the mushroom folks at Green City. I have aquired a taste for some of the fancier mushrooms and intend to continue to eat them.

I have been to Whole Foods and they charge outrageoous prices for all mushrooms. What am I to do?

I intend to keep eating fancy mushrooms but the cheap-o in me rebelks at the thought of buying at Whole Foods. Any tips?

Super H Mart has an interesting selection of mushrooms -- not a massively wide collection, but five or six kinds -- and their prices are good.

Mitsuwa and Super H will have some of the broadest selections.

Any of the multi-ethnic markets like Marketplace on Oakton or Lincolnwood produce will usually have oyster, shiitake, and maybe enoki.

Best,
Michael

Great timing AngrySarah...I was thinking about mushroom farms just yesterday as I was driving through the country. As a child I remember going to a mushroom farm in Will County with my mom. I vividly remember entering this dark, musty and warm barn that was filled with trays of mushrooms. We would yell to let him/her know we were there, get a container and put the money in a bucket or something similar. I think they only grew button mushrooms but they were good button mushrooms. While the barn is still there, they no longer 'grow' mushrooms.

Does anyone know if there are any mushroom farms in the area anymore that sell to the public?
veloute

I find that Whole Foods has decent (although still expensive) prices on bulk chanterelles. Every other mushroom at Whole Paycheck, I can get cheaper almost everywhere else.

I think the best bargain mushrooms in the city is the 8 oz container of criminis at Trader Joe's for $1.99. The exact same mushrooms (same brand, same container) sell at Whole Paycheck and Dominick's are between $3.99-$4.99.

I get my mushrooms, at least this time of year, at the Evanston Farmers' Market.River Valley/Shrooms Kitchen always has a good supply of the usual suspects, plus occasionally oyster, shitakes and others. Green Acres also has interesting wild mushrooms sporadically, specifically maitake and (one of which I got recently) sulfur shelf. Nichols also has them on a sporadic basis - that's where I got the puffball that I took to the picnic.

Its been a long time, but about 15 years ago when I lived in Naperville, there was a mushroom grower in Lisle about a half-mile of Ogden, off some small road west of Yackley. Sorry I can't be of more help. I just got back from picking wild mushrooms in NWI though. Yum, made quite a haul this trip. Tons of buttons, sheepsheads, and a few Morelles. Free + wild = a hard deal to beat.

I don't know if it's the same source as Tom's but the Skokie farmer's market also had a 'shroom stand. Got my first morels ever there, and can understand your jones.

I like the Skokie market because its on Sundays and for some reason I can never get it together in time to make the market on a Saturday.

on Broadway just north of Lawrence has a nice selection of mushrooms at fabulous prices

For our fresh mushrooms we are open year round, everyday until 6:00 pm. Seasonal mushrooms:
morels- around Mother's Day
chanterelle and hen of the woods - early to mid fall
We sell white mushrooms, crimini (baby bellas), portabellas, oysters, shiitake and wild mushrooms in season.

http://www.shroomskitchen.com/

They are in Wi. right over the border. I think they do all the farmers markets in the area.

lowjones

HI,

Long ago, I had a friend in high school whose brother was a ranger for the National Parks. His speciality was trees. My friend would comment how his brother would drive with one eye on the road and one surveying trees. If something was particularly interesting, he'd stop short to jump out and look. I remember thinking the brother pretty odd and how scary it must be a passenger. That is until I took up mushrooming years ago and found I pretty much did the same.

I consider myself a pretty good driver and quite observant. Today while driving no more than 25 miles per hour, I spotted some orange curly things around a tree. I drove past, thought it about it again, then stopped to back up for a second look:



I looked a little more carefully, grabbed my camera while telling my friend Helen, "I think we have a patch of stinkhorns."



While other cars slowly passed us wondering what could be so interesting on the parkway, we took pictures liked we just witnessed a great event:





These are interesting mushrooms whose fruiting body looks like an egg, then opens to extend a rather phallic fungi with a tip wet with spores. Often they have a strong odor, which attracts flies who descend upon them and help distribute their spores.



On top is the egg form, see the roots sticking out, and the bottom image is fully extended, though note the remainders of the egg at the bottom. I didn't have a knife to make a nice neat cross section of the egg to see the stalk wrapped up inside. Perhaps I will return tomorrow to get this final image.

When President Nixon visited China in the early 1970's, a variety of stinkhorn (family Phallaceae) was served to him as an honored guest.

Regards,

She doesn't go into specifics of sources in Chicago, but a fellow contributor at Gapers Block, Yu Kizawa, has a nice guide to using Japanese mushrooms this week.

Hi,

Thanks!

The enoki can be found wild in the Chicago area. However, they are not white with a stem is a velvety brown. I believe commercial enoki growers have lightless growing conditions to achieve the white variant seen in Japanese cuisine.

The egg form shown above opened last night. The newspaper it was sitting on probably offered some resistance, because the stem broke off.

Regards,

nr706 wrote:I get my mushrooms, at least this time of year, at the Evanston Farmers' Market.River Valley/Shrooms Kitchen always has a good supply of the usual suspects, plus occasionally oyster, shitakes and others. Green Acres also has interesting wild mushrooms sporadically, specifically maitake and (one of which I got recently) sulfur shelf. Nichols also has them on a sporadic basis - that's where I got the puffball that I took to the picnic.

River Valley is the same vendor who is at the Green City Market. They mostly have shitakes, portabellos, creminis, and white mushrooms. Rarely, they have something more exotic/interesting.

Farmers markets are mainly done for the year, but I need a good amount of oyster mushrooms this weekend. Any thoughts on where to go this week? Or is it an impossible quest?

Hi,

Oyster mushrooms can be found in the wild and they are cultivated, too. I have a friend whose son's business was mushroom growing. They offered white, yellow and pearl gray oyster mushrooms. This was an era where I almost never took a picture of anything, so the vision lives in my mind. They quietly went out of business some years ago.

I see oysters all time at H-Mart.

Regards,

Actually, I've seen oyster mushrooms at most conventional grocers. Shouldn't be a problem - just call around. WF usually has them, as does the Jewel on Howard, as does Marketplace on Oakton.

There is a vendor selling mushrooms at the Logan Square Farmers Market every Sunday. I'm not sure if they'll have oyster mushrooms but they have them very frequently (if not always).

Mhays wrote:Actually, I've seen oyster mushrooms at most conventional grocers. Shouldn't be a problem - just call around. WF usually has them, as does the Jewel on Howard, as does Marketplace on Oakton.

Agreed. In addition, the Green City Market still operates and has a mushroom vendor that always has oysters.

River Valley Mushroom farm in Slades Corner Wisconsin always has a good selection of mushrooms.Portabellas,Oyster Brown,s and White Button mushrooms.
They have a good selection of organic vegatables year round.They have heated hot houses just accross the road.They also put out older mushrooms a reduced prices.I buy these for dehydrating and finf they have a deeper flavor'
The farm is located on Hwy. 50 west of Paddock Lake.

jerryg wrote:River Valley Mushroom farm in Slades Corner Wisconsin always has a good selection of mushrooms.Portabellas,Oyster Brown,s and White Button mushrooms.

I just checked a jar of dried morels I have to find the name of the mushrooom guys at Logan Square Market on Sundays - lo and behold it's River Valley. Really good mushrooms. I can't say enough good stuff about them, if it wasn't for them and some of the meat vendors I'm not sure I'd be going to the Farmers Market in the dead of winter.