Closing out the year of the Fungi!
Fungi Friday's - December 30th, 2022 - Issue #63
Hey Fungi Friday fam,
Going to probably be a short one to close out 2022, as I’m currently sitting in a Bangkok airport and my battery is running low. Hard to believe that 2022 has officially come and gone. Looking back, safe to say 2022 was definitely the year of the mushroom… we had legalizations occur or be put in motion around the world, we had many new breakthroughs and discoveries, and we also had no shortage of simply fascinating mushroom / fungi related stories to cover. Hard not to be excited about everything going on in this industry, there are some serious wheels in motion that I am sure will be built upon even further in 2023.
That’s next week’s story though… for now, I simply hope you all have a wonderful New Years. Here are a few more stories to finish off this fantastic 2022!
Brain Scientists Are Tripping Out Over Psychedelics
As long as you aren’t new around here, I’m sure you’re aware that psychedelic drugs – like LSD, salvia, ayahuasca, Ibogaine, MDMA (AKA ecstasy), or psilocybin (AKA 'magic mushrooms' or 'shrooms') – are experiencing a resurgence of interest in their potential medical benefits.
In fact, at the Neuroscience 2022 meeting held by the Society of Neuroscience, the appetite for psychedelic research permeated the sessions, discussions, and even after-hours barroom talk — drawing in researchers, neuroscientists, companies, reporters, and advocates alike. This is good to see, as the more intelligent minds discussing this space, the more we’ll be able to learn what the same substances may or may not be capable of.
"In the last couple of years there has been a lot of excitement in psychedelics. I think it started first in the popular media." says Alex Kwan, associate professor at Cornell University. "Neuroscience, actually, I think took another year or two to catch on."
And so with that, feature number one is actually an audio recording, where host Aaron Scott and NPR's brain correspondent Jon Hamilton chat psychedelic drugs — whether this renewed interest will represent incremental or revolutionary changes in the fields of medicine, psychology, and neuroscience. Give it a listen and let us know what you think!
Understanding the Mystifying Function That Fungi Play in Ecosystems
When you say “fungi,” most people think of mushrooms, the fruiting bodies above the ground or food source, but most fungi do not actually produce mushrooms. Furthermore, of the estimated 3 to 13 million fungal species on Earth, many are microscopic in size, and therefore invisible to the naked eye.
Fungi live in a wide range of environments including in soils, inside the tissues of leaves in rainforests, and in deep oceans. Understanding how fungi move across a range of spatial scales is important to understanding ecosystems and has significant implications for agriculture and human health, according to a new review published in the journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics.
Fungi are frequently associated with death and decay. “We typically think of fungi as decomposers, but they do many different things,” says lead author Bala Chaudhary, an associate professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth. “Fungi can also function as nutrient cyclers, pathogens, and mutualists that live in a beneficial association with plants and other organisms.”
As part of the analysis, the researchers studied theoretical relationships between the relative importance of vectors of dispersal and spatial scale and vectors of dispersal. They identified four scales of fungal movement from microscopic to landscape scales.
Tiny root-like structures of fungi move through the soil on the smallest scale. Invertebrate animals, such as ants, and earthworms can transport fungi through their castings and nests, and small mammals and birds may transport fungi via their feet, feathers, and digestive tracks. Abiotic vectors, such as water and wind, are responsible for fungal movement across the landscape and continents. And finally, rivers transport sediment containing fungi propagules across continents, ocean currents and tides, and precipitation, as well as humans, all play a role in the global transit of fungi.
The 5 Most Popular Mushroom Recipes of 2022
And for our final feature of this week, what better way to wrap up 2022, the year of the mushroom with an article documenting 5 populate mushroom recipes? After all, according to the NYT, mushrooms are the 2022 “Ingredient of the Year.” But while mushrooms are the “it” ingredient, what recipes are home cooks making with them the most?
This quick and delicious recipe can be made in under 30 minutes without cream or milk. A mix of butter and flour thicken chicken stock and creates a velvety soup without being too heavy. The combination of crimini and white button mushrooms add earthy notes that work well with the rich broth.
Mushrooms aren’t simply tossed into this tasty pasta dish. They are infused directly into the sauce. A mix of butter, onion, garlic, baby bella mushrooms and cream creates the perfect sauce to add to pappardelle pasta.
A 25/75 mushroom-meat blend is the perfect consistency to elevate the classic meatloaf dish. Button mushrooms and your choice of protein are blended to create the meatloaf and baked for 45 minutes. Once baked, this delicious meatloaf is topped with savory crimini mushroom gravy.
All the comforting flavors of lasagna with less work! This unique lasagna soup is packed with selenium superstars crimini mushrooms, vitamin C rich tomatoes and spinach, and al dente lasagna noodles. A dollop of ricotta and a sprinkle of mozzarella are added for a delicious, nutrient-dense yet still oozing with cheesy goodness weeknight meal.
These vegetarian scallops made from cleverly sliced trumpet mushrooms add a creative twist to the typical seafood dish. The mushroom “scallops” are browned and cooked until tender. A drizzle of nutty, caramelized brown butter and vibrant thyme send them over the top.
In all transparency, I just found this article today, so I haven’t had much chance to try any of these. That being said, I definitely plan to! And should you, our loyal reader, also give any of these a shot, please let us know! We’d love to hear about it!
Want even more? Here are some other interesting, mushroom focused reads of the week:
Does Mushroom Coffee Have More Benefits Than a Regular Cup of Joe?
Psychedelic drugs may launch a new era in psychiatric treatment, brain scientists say
As always, thank you for reading this weeks edition of Fungi Friday’s! We are especially thankful for all of you who spend your Friday lunch with us, learning about all things Fungi. If you enjoyed what you found, please feel free to forward to friends also interested in the Fungi Community!
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