‘Taste’ is used figuratively to mark our differences – our taste in fashion, culture, etc – and that’s how I’m using it here. Because I’d never dare eat any of these.
My sweetheart won’t eat mushrooms at all. it isn’t so much the flavour but the mouth feel. He’s happy for things to be cooked with them, provided any destined for his plate are reallocated to mine. While I’m positively adventurous, compared with him, the bar is set low. I do love mushrooms, especially button ones, but no-one would say I had sophisticated tastes.
Part of the trouble is that I have no faith in my ability to distinguish the edible mushrooms from the deadly ones and I have read too many Agatha Christie books as a girl. You have to assume if mushrooms are being offered for sale, they are OK, but I always entertain a flash of doubt. So while I’ve been going out of my way to sample a few wild raspberries on my walks, I would never dare forage for mushrooms.
In my lifetime, I must have eaten some of the ones above, in Chinese dishes, for example, but not deliberately. I could never see the point in buying them, often at great expense, when the button ones suit me fine.
I am happy to pay extra for good bread, if I can get it, though there are limits. Willingness to pay a premium price is partly to do with ability – can I stretch to this? – but also with perceived value, built up over a lifetime of associations.
Bread, now: aroma, bite, crust, wholesomeness, nutrients, artisan values, tasty extras like olives, walnuts, seeds, sour cherries even… those things tempt me.
Mushrooms: more spindly looking, more wizened, a higher stalk to cap ratio, more chewy or more melting…? I just don’t get it. What am I missing?
Shared for Becky’s Square Perspectives. Her post today will raise a smile.
Susan Rushton 
I did visit Becky’s post, and, yes, it is a good one for lightening the heart. Thanks to you both for that! As for mushrooms, they too lighten my heart; for reasons I cannot explain, I love their look. I have also been known, back in the day when I ate such things, to eat mushroom pizza most undaintily. Someone made mushroom soup once that was one of the best things I ever ate. But mostly I love looking at them. Your first photo above is lovely to me — a brown study, for sure. The price in the second photo was all I could see, however. Good gracious!
I’m in complete agreement that “adventure” and “mushroom” ought not go together in terms of ingestion. But they make for a fine visual adventure. Thanks!
thank you so much 🙂
Some things are too good to be eaten without some gusto but I’m having all kinds of thoughts about you undaintily eating mushroom pizza. I quite like a mushroom pizza myself – my main problem is waiting long enough for it to cool.
Oh, indeed. One must develop such a fine sense of timing with that first bite of good pizza! Too soon, and the mouth gets burned; too late and the cheese isn’t properly gooey. Practice, practice, practice!
Exactly.
Totally agree Susan! Good artisan bread – tick. Slimy mushrooms 😱
oh no do you think they are slugs? I always feel so sorry for those who don’t get mushrooms. I adore them
I love button mushrooms and the brown ones and Portobello with blue cheese, but not so fond of the fancy ones.
Yay!!
It’s fun to see them in the woods – and then, the weirder the better!
Have you never eaten funghi porcini or girolles? They are heavenly and add so much flavour to dishes. I love mushrooms.
Not knowingly. You do make them sound good.
They are magical!
In addition to expensive mushrooms I would never pay the price for truffles or for caviar.
I don’t think I’d fancy caviar if it was cheap!
I know exactly what you mean!
Having lived in France where fungi- hunting was an art form, but one which I never dared indulge in without the company of a knowledgeable friend, I’ve come to appreciate some of the subtle flavour differences. But on the whole I get by with common-or garden field or button mushrooms, and the extra kick of dried ones in various flavours. But I do love a good mushroom-hunt, though I’m only confident in picking field mushrooms, shaggy ink caps and puffballs. Free food is the best!
I like the idea of foraging and will always grab a few berries if they’re ripe. Infact I was looking enviously at raspberries growing wild just a few feet out of reach earlier today. I can’t imagine eating puffballs. I would never have thought they were edible if you hadn’t told me.
Be careful, though. There are some lookalikes. You don’t want to think you’re eating a puffball and find out it’s really a baby Amanita still encased in its vulva. The big volleyball puffballs are fine.
I love mushrooms, but I just wait if it’s on sale.
That’s a wise approach. 🙂
I adore mushrooms, but like you I am too cautious to go out and forage my own. And, much as I love ’em, I would never pay that price. Holy cats!
It might be interesting to grow some. It’s funny how they emerge. I’ve only ever grown them by accident in the past.
I’m in your camp about trusting wild mushrooms, with similar threats of death drilled into my head as a child. Like your partner, I find the texture off-putting. The flavor, esp. in soup, is welcome, however!
I don’t particularly like their texture. I like them in cottage pie too, although that’s not traditional.
Bread for me – but I’ll eat cooked mushrooms without thinking about the taste
They’re one of the few things I like fried.
A big no for me on mushrooms, bread yes, and I’m willing pay extra, and to venture when it comes to bread👌😊
Really good bread is one of the finest luxuries.
Fabulous mushrooms, my favourites. I do use the stronger more expensive ones occasionally, but always as an addition to other mushrooms. Kind of an extra kick rather than the main delight.
A little extra umami 🙂
Exactly!
I love mushrooms, but dare not buy the more unusual ones as identification scares me a little bit.
Last time I had a mushroom omelette a couple of years ago I was really ill. Don’t know whether it was the Oyster, Enokitaki,Shitake or Brown field mushrooms I used, so I haven’t bought any since. A recent allergy/intolerance test showed I was reactive (to mushrooms which I’ve eaten for most of my life) – one more favourite food now off the shopping list.
I’m sorry you’re intolerant of mushrooms when you enjoy them so much. Do you think you’ve always been that way and just never realised? My mum is gluten intolerant and I am scared I might develop that at some point. I love good bread and can’t imagine anything I’d miss more.