[Sca-cooks] mushrooms (was Italian Cookery)

[phoenissa at netscape.net]

Thanks very much - these are going on my book list and then in a couple weeks I'll hit the library in earnest :)

And now for something completely different...if one is making a period mushroom dish, what sorts of mushrooms should one use?  I find that the normal white ones are rather insipid; I prefer brown (crimini) mushrooms and they're easy to find.  I'm also fortunate to have access to fresh chanterelles, morels, porcini, and other wild mushrooms for very reasonable prices.  I'm afraid I know very little about the cultivation of edible fungus, so I gotta ask, are there any particular varieties that we know were used in period?  Which ones are modern strands?  (I suspect portobello is a relatively new trend.)  Are any native only to the New World?  I'd imagine that anyone cooking mushrooms back then would've used a melange of whatever non-poisonous ones were growing in the closest woods, possibly several varieties in a single dish; but I'd like to know which of today's varieties are most appropriate.

Vittoria


johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu> wrote:

>There are two bibliographic sources that you should
>start with in Italian Cookery.
>


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