Mushrooms ... we love them so ! (Revisited)

Mushrooms seldom make the news. It's not a popular means to purposely poison someone (although, I must admit, of all the things I have worried about dying from relating to ingestion, I think mushrooms would be high up on the list).

So, what brings them up today (no pun/vulgarity intended)?

Mushroom coffee! Does anything sound grosser?

I like mushroom soup and cream of mushroom soup. They are delicious raw in salads (especially salade niçoise) or sautéed in EVOO for omelets. But using it as an additive in coffee? I have infused mushrooms into butter and have baked mushroom bread.

Adding mushroom (which, by the way, is as broad a category as 'tea') to the dietary regimen is quite similar to taking an OTC (over-the-counter) medication or even doing self-prescribing. I took a look at an abstract (Medicinal Mushrooms: Their Bioactive Components, Nutritional Value and Application in Functional Food Production—A Review) and attempted to see if I could understand the variety of mushrooms that are out there and what their healing properties might be. Here are the first four sentences:

"Medicinal mushrooms, e.g., Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus (Bull.) Pers.), Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum (Curtis) P. Karst.), Chaga (Inonotus obliquus (Ach. ex Pers.) Pilát), Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps sinensis (Berk.) G.H. Sung, J.M. Sung, Hywel-Jones and Spatafora), Shiitake (Lentinula edodes (Berk.) Pegler), and Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor (L.) Lloyd), are considered new-generation foods and are of growing interest to consumers. They are characterised by a high content of biologically active compounds, including (1,3)(1,6)-beta-d-glucans, which are classified as dietary fibre, triterpenes, phenolic compounds, and sterols. Thanks to their low-fat content, they are a low-calorie product and are classified as a functional food. They have a beneficial effect on the organism through the improvement of its overall health and nutritional level."

It's kind of overwhelming. Needless to say, when someone from a marketing or business administration background takes something like this and tries to package it as the neatest thing since sliced bread, I raise my eyebrows with a sense of suspicion. As my sainted grandmother used to say, " Caveat emptor ! " And I generally live by that rule, as evidenced by how long I might have a product sitting in my Amazon account before I hit the SEND button.

I may look a bit more into these fungi for their healing properties. However, in the meantime, I will probably enjoy a few of them cleaned, sliced, and tossed into today's lunch salad.