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Mushrooms
Champignons
Appears in
Published 2010
Mushrooms belong to the Fungi family. The word mushroom comes from the old French word moisseron, which comes from mousse, or “moss.” This word also existed in old English as mos, meaning a swamp or bog. Although there are many mushroom varieties, many are toxic, which limits our consumption to those wild types that are trusted or to commercially grown mushrooms.
Although for purposes of cooking, we consider mushrooms to be vegetables, they are not plants. Unlike plants, mushrooms do not contain seeds, leaves, roots, or chlorophyll. Fungi draw their nutrients from other living things, living off the material of plants and plant remains. Mushrooms reproduce by releasing spores into the air. After being carried by the wind, new mushrooms grow where the spores have landed. They grow, reproduce, and thrive in dark, moist spaces.