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Mushrooms on the World’s Plate
Lesson 2

A Tasting Map of the World

Mushrooms on the World’s Plate▾
  1. 1A Passport for Mushrooms
    1. A Passport for Mushrooms6 min
  2. 2A Tasting Map of the World
    1. A Tasting Map of the World8 min
  3. 3Why Mushrooms Taste So Good
    1. Why Mushrooms Taste So Good7 min
  4. 4Cook a Mushroom Dish Together
    1. Cook a Mushroom Dish Together8 min
The video for this lesson is being prepared.

Open the map!

Time to travel. Each stop on our map is a real place where people love cooking mushrooms. Picture the smells and the warm bowls. Ready? First stop!

Stop 1: China

We begin in China, home of the shiitake mushroom. Shiitake has been grown here for a very long time. The first written notes about growing it are more than 800 years old!

A favourite dish is soft shiitake braised slowly with green bok choy. Cooks also toss mushrooms into a hot pan and stir-fry them fast with garlic and ginger.

Stop 2: Japan

Next door in Japan, mushrooms go into cosy bowls. In autumn, families make kinoko gohan — rice cooked with mushrooms mixed all through it.

Mushrooms also float in warm miso soup. A thin, feathery mushroom called enoki is a favourite here.

Stop 3: Italy

Fly to Italy and smell something creamy. It is risotto ai funghi — soft, buttery rice stirred with mushrooms. Italians love a rich, woody mushroom called porcini.

Mushrooms also go on pizza and into pasta sauce. Yum!

Stop 4: India

Now to India, land of spices. Here mushrooms simmer in warm, red tomato and onion sauces called curries.

Button and oyster mushrooms are the everyday favourites. The curry is spooned over fluffy rice or scooped up with soft flatbread.

Stop 5: Mexico

Last stop, Mexico! People here have eaten oyster mushrooms, called setas, for a very long time.

Cooks fry them with onion and herbs, then fold them inside a warm tortilla with melty cheese. That folded, cheesy treat is a quesadilla.

Same friend, five plates

Look back at our map. In every single stop, cooks used mushrooms much like the ones you can grow at home.

  • China: braised and stir-fried

  • Japan: in rice and soup

  • Italy: in creamy risotto

  • India: in spicy curry

  • Mexico: in a cheesy quesadilla

One little mushroom, welcomed at tables all around the world.

Every single one of these dishes uses cooked, farm-grown mushrooms. Nobody in our story eats a raw or a wild mushroom. That is the safe way, everywhere.

Next, we find out why mushrooms taste so good in all these dishes.

Quick quiz

Answer every question, then check how you did. You can try as often as you like — your score is just for you.

1.Which mushroom has been grown in China for over 800 years?
2.In Japan, mushrooms are often cooked into rice and floated in which soup?
3.In Mexico, oyster mushrooms are folded with cheese inside a tortilla to make what?
4.What is true about the mushrooms in every dish on our map?

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Related grow kits

These optional kits are sold in our external webshop. Learning here stays free. A grown-up handles orders and follows the kit instructions.

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