This Week’s Food Tips
Mushrooms
This month, the Crier will be featuring weekly “Food Tips” from Foodland Ontario. We hope you enjoy these interesting facts and tips about buying, storing and using fresh Ontario products.
White Button: This popular mushroom ranges in size from tiny to jumbo. Add to soups, salads, pastas, stir-fries and meat dishes.
Crimini (Brown): Similar to button mushrooms with an earthier flavour. Sauté, stir-fry, grill or bake.
Portabella: Large, mature crimini mushrooms with a meaty texture. Grill or stir-fry.
Oyster: Large fluted silky gray or blue caps with short stems. Grill whole or slice and stir-fry.
Shiitake: Velvety dark tan caps with a meaty texture and rich woodsy taste. Sauté, stir-fry or grill. Discard tough stems or use to flavour stocks.
Buying and Storing
A mushroom is more delicate than an egg and bruises easily.
To preserve freshness, store in a brown paper bag and use as soon as possible.
Just before using, clean with a soft brush or damp cloth, rinse in cold water and pat dry. Serve mushrooms raw or cooked.
Bites
Ontario mushrooms are available year-round.
They are cultivated in a pasteurized substance.
The average mushroom picker harvests 40 lb (18 kg) or 1,600 mushrooms per hour.
Mushrooms are fat-free and low in calories. They contain potassium, riboflavin, selenium, copper, pantothenic acid and niacin.
Ontario produces more than 50% of all mushrooms in Canada.99% of the mushrooms grown in Ontario are white button.
Larger Ontario farms can harvest about 50,000 lb (22,727 kg) of button mushrooms per day.
Of the thousands of mushroom varieties in the world, only about 25 are cultivated.
- Printed with permission from Foodland Ontario and Canadian Mushroom Growers Association
