Theres snroom for more

India grows a staggering variety of mushrooms. Yet, we can't move past the button variety. See how some growers are putting the fun in fungi

-  Christalle Fernandes

Why aren't we eating more mushrooms? We already know they taste good - we've devoured porcini puffs, gucchi biryani, enoki bibimbap and Quattro-fungi pizza at trendy restaurants. We know they're nutritious too - all fibre, no fat, packed with Vitamin D. They're easy to grow - they spring from sawdust, dead logs, straw, coffee grounds, even cardboard sheets. They require less water, energy and land than vegetable crops.

And yet, on grocery runs, all we're picking up is the occasional tray of button mushrooms. Indian farmers now grow giant portobello, red reishi, nutty pioppino, oyster, shiitake, shimeji, and frightfully expensive lion's mane. But they stubbornly refuse to break out of the gourmet aisle.

See how some farmers are hoping to change that, and make fungus among us a reality.

Growth spurt

Perhaps our hesitation springs from the fact that mushrooms are neither vegetable nor meat; a They/Them pronoun in a world of strict binaries.