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Fall
1999
[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED
MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1999.]
Existential
Mushrooms:The
Middle Kingdom of Chicago Wilderness
By
Raymond Wiggers
If
you need proof of this world's rottenness, consider the
fungi. They are the insidious agents of decay and untimely
death. They compromise our crops, attack our favorite shade
trees, undermine our wooden dwellings, stain our walls with
mildew, and plague us with a host of diseases ranging from
athlete's foot to lethal infections. For the sake of our
own survival, we must keep these disgusting, alien forms
of life at bay.
Such
anti-fungus prejudice brings out the fighting side of Field
Museum mycologist Dr. Gregory Mueller.
"This
is a perfect example of ignorance breeding contempt,"
he says with a sense of authority born of much time spent
defending the planet's most misunderstood organisms. "Without
fungi, we simply wouldn't exist. Without their skills as
decomposers, for example, we'd drown in an ocean of organic
debris. Literally." He also cites the thousands of
human lives saved by drugs derived from fungi, such as penicillin,
an acid that kills bacteria by preventing them from building
cell walls; cyclosporin, an immune-response inhibitor that
aids in organ transplants; and lovastatin, which lowers
cholesterol levels.
Until
fairly recently, scientists considered fungi to be plants.
Yet most plants have chlorophyll and roots and highly differentiated
tissues. Fungi lack all three. Plants are renowned for their
ability to manufacture their own food; fungi require an
external source of nutrition but are expert at finding and
even digesting their food externally. Indeed, some scientists
argue that the fungi are more closely linked to that other
kingdom of highly proficient consumers, the animals. Admitting
to such shared ancestry might run counter to our preferences,
so you may be relieved to know that most scientists now
put fungi in a separate, middle kingdom, between the plants
and animals.
Unlike
bacteria, fungi are eukaryotes — advanced organisms
with cell nuclei and organelles. With a fossil record extending
back four to eight hundred million years, fungi are now
recognized, at least by the scientific community, as lead
actors in the drama of life.
Most
fungus is invisible, underground or inside rotting wood.
Mushrooms are actually the short-lived fruiting bodies of
larger, weblike networks of hyphae, or fungal strands. These
networks, also called mycelia, grow in soil, leaf litter,
wood, and other substrates. (In one Michigan woodland, researchers
have found a mycelium — one individual organism —
that covers 35 acres and is approximately 1,500 years old.)
Mushrooms and similar structures such as polypores, earth
stars, and puffballs, are the cleverly engineered mechanisms
these fungi use to produce and disperse their spores. And
this they do by relying on nature's ancient, costly, but
effective game of large numbers. A single morel mushroom
casts several million spores; a giant puffball, an astounding
twenty trillion. It's fortunate for the rest of us that
many are called, but few are chosen: if more than a tiny
fraction of those spores were successful, the fungi would
quickly overwhelm their sister kingdoms, derail earth's
intricate interplay of ecosystems, and ultimately starve
to death on their own success.
After
listening to Greg Mueller combat fungiphobia and extol his
beloved middle kingdom, one knows he has a flair for explaining
the fine points of mycology — the science that deals
with the classification, evolution, and ecological significance
of the fungi. As a curator and botany department chair at
the Field Museum — one of the country's top two or
three institutions in mycology — Mueller is also a
prominent academic and researcher. A native of Belleville,
Illinois, who received his doctorate at the University of
Tennessee, Mueller first became intrigued by fungi when,
as an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University, he
was unexpectedly enthralled by a mycology course he took.
"I'd probably have been hooked on the subject earlier,"
he admits, "but you can't be excited by something until
you know it exists."
Mueller's
career — which has included work in the Pacific Northwest,
Scandinavia, China, and the New World tropics — has
flourished in a period that can justly be called the golden
age of his branch of biology. Mueller is well aware of his
own good timing: "New technologies, new types of research,
and the current emphasis on biodiversity have put fungi
at the forefront." Currently, he's conducting a local
study with Field Museum colleagues Patrick Leacock and John
Paul Schmit. The trio is scrutinizing the impact of air
pollution, specifically in the form of inorganic nitrogen,
on ecologically important mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi
and the root systems of their hosts — oaks and most
other native trees — form symbiotic associations known
as ectomycorrhizae. By comparing ectomycorrhizal communities
at such sites as Cook County's Swallow Cliff Woods, located
upwind of the city's air-pollution plume, to those at the
downwind site of Cowles Bog at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore,
the team has already found some alarming evidence. It appears
that the higher level of nitrogen deposition at Cowles Bog
is linked to the smaller proportion of ectomycorrhizae there
An appreciation of mycology and its latter-day advances
is a good way to overcome fungiphobia, but there are other
ways, too, though they have little to do with science in
the modern sense. Instead, they point to a world of rich
ethnic traditions. If the Chicago region has become one
of the best places to see mushrooms cherished by Science,
it remains one of the finest locales to see them coveted
as Food. And what a food! Mushrooms are delicacies that
are skillfully, ritualistically, and often secretively hunted,
lovingly prepared and happily consumed
In Chicagoland, many of the most passionate adherents to
the cult of edible fungi are the descendants of Central
and Eastern European immigrants — people of Polish,
Italian, and Czech blood, who have inherited a distinctly
mushroom—centered appreciation of nature and cuisine.
In Berwyn, Cicero, and La Grange Park, residents can still
tell you the meaning and deeper implications of the Czech
term houby (pronounced HOE—bee). If you search for
the term on the Internet, you'll find yourself awash in
a sea of Old Country Web sites, most containing recipes
or scenes of storybook forests. Even without understanding
a word of the language, you quickly get the sense that houby
merely means mushrooms, in the same sense that caviar merely
means seafood.
Each
fall for the past 31 years the Czech-American community
has flaunted its love of mushrooming through a fall Houby
Festival. This year the festival occurs on October 2 & 3
with an Arts and Crafts show on Cermak Road from Austin
to Wesley and a carnival on Cermak and Lombard Ave. (9 a.m.-
6 p.m.). The parade is on October 3rd along Cermak from
Central to Oakpark Ave. (12:30-2:30 p.m.). Visitors find,
in addition to theme dishes and local merchants' offerings,
printed regulations for would-be houby hunters. One learns
that proper dress is required (black felt cap with visor,
long underwear, heavy twill vest, leggings, and rope belt)
and that the hunter's car must be at least 10 years old,
have less than 3,000 miles on the odometer, and be used
only on rainless Sundays. One other regulation, though,
is less a play on the Bohemian immigrant stereotype than
it is rooted in the unassailable truth. On setting out from
home, so the instructions read, the houby hunter must drive
through alleys, circle the block several times, and always
use the least direct route to the picking grounds, lest
neighbors learn where the best mushrooms sprout. Tony Jandacek,
one of the region's most experienced Czech-American mushroomers
(see sidebar), vouches for the prevalence of this approach.
"The last thing you want is someone learning where
you've been."
Opinions
are somewhat divided on which edible fungi are choicest,
but candidates include Chicken-of-the-Woods, alternatively
called Sulfur Shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus), Hen-of-the-Woods
(Grifola frondosa), Chanterelle (Cantarellus cibarius),
Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea), King Bolete (Boletus
edulis), Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellaea),
and even that master of deconstruction, Shaggy Mane (Coprinus
comatus), notable for the speed with which its cap disintegrates
into blobs of black goo. (You have to eat it within an hour
or two.) Perhaps the general darling of Midwestern mushroom
gourmets is the morel (morchella species).
One
species particularly favored by Chicagoans of Italian descent
poses a special challenge. The Silky Volvariella (Volvariella
bombycina) is often found high on the trunks of elms
and other hardwood trees, and must be carefully dislodged
with a cutting blade attached to the end of a long pole.
Most other edibles are much more accessible. The first thing
the apprentice mushroomer learns is the gear needed for
the hunt: a good knife and a loose-slatted basket or fishnet
bag. Mushrooms should never be stored in plastic, lest the
fungus tissue sweat and swiftly decay.
Every veteran mushroomer agrees on one point: the need for
expert identification of every specimen collected is paramount.
It's said that there are old mushroomers, and bold mushroomers,
but no old and bold mushroomers. The Chicago region is home
to the Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa) and the
equally well-named Deadly Galerina (Galerina autumnalis)
and to an assortment of nonlethal but still seriously toxic
species. According to Connie Fischbein, a certified specialist
at the Illinois Poison Center in Chicago, it isn't difficult
to confuse the early, egg-shaped phase of Amanita mushrooms
with small, edible puffballs. In addition, she notes, some
European immigrants have confused the local Green-Spored
Parasol (Chlorophyllum molybdites), which contains
gastrointestinal irritants, with choice look-alikes of their
homeland.
Similarly,
Greg Mueller has encountered cases of new arrivals from
Europe mistaking our Jack-O'-Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus
olearius) for their accustomed chanterelles. The eerily
beautiful but poisonous Jack-O'-Lantern owes its common
name to its orange color and penchant for glowing in the
dark. There are tales of shipwrecked sailors and trenchbound
soldiers using the bioluminescence of this and other mushroom
species as an organic flashlight.
Some
aspects of the naturalist's education — wildflower
identification say, or birding — may be done in the
solitary, Thoreauvian mode, but in matters mycological it's
best that beginners tag along with knowledgeable veterans.
"And it's important," states Mueller, "that
your mentor isn't just someone who considers himself an
expert." Such self-professed authorities often cite
"foolproof" tests for mushroom toxicity. To quote
the most common:
- A
silver coin or spoon placed in the pot with cooking mushrooms
will turn black if poison is present?
- Mushrooms
are edible if they are white, if other animals eat them,
or if they grow on wood?
- Mushrooms
can be eaten if the upper cuticle layer of their caps
peels back easily?
All
these tests are unreliable at best and tragically misleading
at worst. One should forego the folk wisdom and never eat
a mushroom until it has been conclusively identified.
Some
mushrooms have developed chemical defenses against would—be
predators. According to Orson K. Miller, Jr., author of
Mushrooms of North America, toxic fungi rely on a wide assortment
of poisons, including those that destroy kidney or liver
tissue, provoke hallucinations, and trigger acute gastrointestinal
pain. "Sometimes, these symptoms are hard to interpret,"
warns Connie Fischbein. "They can have a delayed onset,
and in some cases the symptoms actually seem to get better
for a while, before death or serious illness occurs."
There have been no mushroom-related deaths in the Chicago
area in recent years, but there have been several grave
cases requiring organ transplants. Persons who suspect mushroom
poisoning should call the Illinois Poison Center hotline
at (800) 942-5969; Indiana residents call (800) 382-9097.
For
aspiring mushroomers, the best introduction is to join the
Illinois Mycological Association (IMA). Straddling the worlds
of academic research and traditional mushrooming, and often
taking much content and enthusiasm from both, the IMA is
one of the state's more enduring and well-attended nature
clubs. It currently boasts more than 100 members from a
variety of towns, age groups, and professional backgrounds.
Not unexpectedly, many new members are motivated by the
thrill of hunting edible mushrooms. (Note: Conservation
agencies differ on rules for mushroom collectors. Check
with the landowner first.) But a surprisingly large number
find that their curiosity exceeds its original scope. Not
initially concerned with learning the taxonomic names of
fungi, IMA president Eileen Schutte is now surprised by
"how easily those Latin names just roll off the tongue."
Many
mushroomers are also drawn to the aesthetics of fungal color
and form. On one IMA foray last July, the high point occurred
when the group, hiking through dense woodland, came upon
a striking stalked polypore, Ganoderma lucidum. This august
Chicagoland native, the same species treasured for centuries
by the Chinese, has been variously dubbed "the mushroom
of immortality," "the ginseng of mushrooms,"
and "the herb of spiritual potency." The foray
group had as its chief advisors Greg Mueller and Tony Jandacek,
and both experts used this discovery to explain the species'
ancient medicinal and gastronomic uses. Still, most of the
group seemed to think that the highest function of this
fungus lay in its intrinsic beauty. Looking like a small,
gracefully flaring sculpture enameled cherry-brown, the
ganoderma glistened even in the forest gloom.
Raymond
Wiggers is a science writer specializing in the botanical
and earth sciences, with five published books, including
Geology Underfoot in Illinois (Mountain Press, 1997).
Erica Benson, Sara Billings, and Amelia Taylor provided
research and photographic assistance for this story.
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