Oyster Mushroom

One of the more popular “exotics” offered in elegant American restaurants of late, the oyster mushroom has an elusive flavor and exceptionally melting texture.

It is the cultivated variety that we find in markets today, although clusters of silvery-taupe and purplish-brown wild oyster mushrooms, overlapped like curving wavelets, cling to stumps of poplars, willows, aspens, and oaks throughout North America (and Europe and the Orient). Beige-cream, usually fan-shaped, the cultivated fungi are primarily smooth, deep-gilled caps that narrow at the bases to short stems, which attach them to a cluster of kin. They can be as tiny as peas or as broad as fried eggs, depending on the strain and its provenance. Raised in California, Canada, and several southeastern states, oyster mushrooms now appear regularly in many markets, thanks to the ingenuity of Hungarian and Oriental mycologists and entrepreneurs who developed relatively foolproof methods for their commercial cultivation.