Mushroom magic

Aug 1 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

A unique new food business is mushrooming in the heart of Northumberland – in more ways than one. Jane Hall found out more.

INSIDE a dim, cool shed what look like 100 giant salamis are hanging from the ceiling. You wouldn’t want to eat the contents of these cylinders, however. Each is packed tightly with moist, rotting straw.

Strange fleshy layered shelves can be seen growing through the plastic wrapping. In the half-light they look like marble sculpted ears of the softest silver-grey with gills of pure ivory.

The forms are no works of art, though, but a miracle of nature cultivated in the heart of the Northumberland countryside by an enterprising South African, Mike Botha.

They are oyster mushrooms, a variety of fungi that have been revered for thousands of years as both a food and a medicine in both Eastern and mid-European cultures, but which by the British are largely ignored thanks to our traditional suspicion of ‘toadstools’.

Fungi generally mean problems – damp, rust and mildew. And a variety as spectacular as the oyster which seeks out recently dead trees in woods and forests to spawn, is to be doubly feared. It is left to the enthusiasts to go out of their way to collect and eat pleurotus ostreatus.

But if Mike Botha has his way oyster mushrooms could soon be giving the acceptable face of edible fungi – the mass produced, usually bland tasting, anaemic-looking button and field varieties favoured by the supermarkets and consumers alike – a run for their money.

It’s just five weeks since he launched Freshshrooms and built his DIY mushroom shed with its clear polythene ceiling inside a barn at Eshottheugh Workshops near Felton. The damp, temperate atmosphere and muted light filtering as if through a canopy of leaves that lies beyond the wooden plywood door, is reminiscent of a dense forest.

The growing conditions are obviously ideal. The first crop bursting forth from their pasteurised cylindrical straw blocks are ready to harvest, with local restaurants eager to get their hands on the fleshy fungi with their meaty texture and mild taste that make them an ideal accompaniment to Oriental-style dishes.

So confident is Mike that his fledgling venture will take-off, that he expects to soon be growing 100 kilos a week – enough to provide a good living for himself, wife Jacquie and three teenage children.

A vegetarian pattie range using the oyster mushrooms as the core ingredient, could soon be on the shelves and discussions are under way with the giant German food producer RAPS to this effect.

A chewy dried vegetarian snack, again using these magic mushrooms, could also be on the cards as Mike is working with his neighbour at Eshottheugh, beef jerky maker Brian Bradley of Mr BBQ, to develop the perfect blend.

It is no pie-in-the-sky dream. For Mike, 48, is an old-hand at oyster mushroom farming, having run one of South Africa’s largest such operations before he and Jacquie, 49, took the reluctant decision to flee the country earlier this year for their children’s safety.

The violent deaths of two separate neighbours in the space of 12 months in armed robberies – one of whom Mike discovered lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen of his home – forced the Bothas’ hands.

As Jacquie is originally from Harrogate and still holds a British passport despite her family moving to South Africa when she was a child, they decided to come to the UK.

Leaving everything behind – getting money out of South Africa is difficult and changing large amounts from rand to sterling is virtually impossible – they arrived near penniless in Northumberland four months ago, drawn to Morpeth on the recommendation of a South African friend who made the town her home 17 years ago.

Mike, who grew up on a dairy farm on the outskirts of Johannesburg before initially working in retail, quickly found a place to go into mushroom production and set-off on the task of converting the British to the culinary delights of his gourmet delicacy. Oyster mushrooms are an ideal cash crop: they grow quickly and in abundance in the right conditions and are packed with protein, vitamin C, niacin, folic acid and potassium. They are also said to help lower cholesterol and have a host of, as yet, scientifically unproven medical uses.

And as Mike is hoping to soon prove, they are robust and versatile little beasts, with their toothsome texture adding a gutsy twist to dishes. Mushrooms are not an obvious commodity to fall in love with. But 15 years after going into mass oyster mushroom production, Mike is as passionate as he ever was about his delicate ear-shaped charges.

One of only six large-scale oyster mushroom growers in his homeland, at its height his business was producing a staggering half a tonne a day that sold into large retail organisations, like Woolworths, which in South Africa is more akin to a top British supermarket.

He originally grew them in the garage of the family home at Empangeni on the north east coast near Durban, where Mike, tired of retailing, had gone back to his roots and bought a farm.

“It was a hot, hot place,” he says in his lilting South African accent. “That’s where I started toying with stuff, and oyster mushrooms in particular. I first started by growing them on sugar cane – it’s a sugar cane area, and I grew the mushrooms on the leaves. Then we got a farm at Port Shepstone on the south coast and went into mass production. We didn’t know what the market was for them, but I got in touch with some people from Thailand, and it was they who taught me everything I know.

“We carried on from there and we made a good living from it. But then everything changed. Two different neighbours were murdered in armed robberies and it was the final straw for us. We didn’t want to live like that, or for our children to live like that. My kids were traumatised. South Africa is unfortunately a very violent place now, and we felt we would rather start anew somewhere else.

“The beauty of mushroom growing is that it is something that can be easily done elsewhere. Obviously, starting again at our age is different to doing it 15 years ago, but you have to think about what is important, and the really important thing is our kids. I believe coming to Northumberland is the best thing we could have done, even though we have had to start from zero. We have been here four months and are absolutely loving it.

“People have been unbelievably friendly – I think that is what stands out, that and the huge interest there has been in the oyster mushrooms. Strangely enough, the Northumberland climate is perfect for me. In South Africa we had to have full climate control, but oyster mushrooms like cool, cold conditions; they get better and the flesh is firmer. No-one is doing what I am around here and I am already looking at expanding. My biggest concern had been finding a market, but it doesn’t look like it is going to be much of a problem.”

Battlesteads Hotel in Wark – recently voted one of the top 20 gourmet hotels by a national Sunday newspaper – has already placed an order, while others, including Alnwick Garden, are showing a keen interest. And Mike has taken a stall at The Journal Taste 2 food and drink festival in association with Tesco at Macdonald Linden Hall hotel, golf and country club near Morpeth on August 30, when he hopes to convert the wider public to the delights of oyster mushrooms. “I would say 80% of people don’t know anything about oyster mushrooms in this country, but I am out to change all that. They really are one of the most versatile fungi; they contain a lot of vitamins and minerals and the protein content ranges from 15% to 35%.

“And as for cooking, they are out of this world. You can use them just like any other mushroom, but I think they are best in stir fries where you can cook them quickly as they remain tender. I liken them to sirloin steak: overcook them and they are tough, but flash fry them and they are juicy and tender. Or my other favourite way of eating them is to fry them in the juices from bacon and have them for breakfast. Man, now that’s what I call a meal.”

:: Freshshrooms, 0845 226-9363.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Potted mushrooms

Use cold as a pate or hot as a relish to go with grilled meats

:: 500g forest mushrooms (oysters are best)

:: 1 large shallots

:: 4 cloves of garlic

:: 250ml double cream

:: 75g salted butter

:: 25g chopped chives

:: 25g chopped parsley

:: 50ml Madeira

Saute the chopped garlic and shallots and add the mushrooms. Colour, add the Madeira and reduce.

Add the cream, reduce by half then blitz in a food processor to your preference.

Either place in a jar or serve straight away.

If using cold, serve with warm toast and balsamic dressing to cut through the buttery taste

Recipe courtesy of Richard Sim, consultant chef for the Made in Northumberland project, set up to showcase the county’s home-grown food and cultural ventures.