Mushrooms and Cooking in Oaxaca

The co-organizers were Mark Thomsen (member of the Mycological Society of San Francisco), and American Susana Trilling, a chef who has lived in Mexico for 17 years. Susana's cooking school (seasonsofmyheart.com) and family are located 30 minutes west of Oaxaca. We signed up immediately! Tour members included Susana, Mark, our extraordinary driver, Joaquin, a resident of NC living in Cuernavaca for a couple of years, and four FFSC members, the Yamacoles (us), Dan Bava from Stockton and his friend Joanie from Salinas.

Most of the tour was in and around small towns in the steep mountains north of Oaxaca, whose residents are descended from the Zapotec Indians. Many of the towns are "mancomunales" - run collectively - and usually only people born in a village are able to own land. Each year people are elected to hold various annual positions; all positions are considered an honor, even if it is to be in charge of keeping streets clean. We met the Presidente of one town and several Cocineras (head cooks). Susana had made friends with all the hoteliers, restaurateurs and foragers we met. As a result, all those we met were uniformly friendly, excited to learn more about mushrooms, and generous with their time.

The Tour

We started with Wednesday dinner at Susana's cooking school, where we ate a wonderful meal prepared by those attending Susana's daylong cooking class. Thursday morning we visited Sierra Viva, a project in Oaxaca run by residents of small. mancomunales in the mountains north of Oaxaca. Sierra Viva buys, dries, sells, packages and locally markets a variety of wild mushrooms. These include Boletus edulis (porcini), Lyophyllum decastes (the "fried chicken group") Lactarius salmonicolor (presumably a salmon-colored lactarius), L. indigo (the indigo milk cap), Russula brevipes (short-stemmed Russula), Hypomyces lactiflourum (lobster mushroom), Tricholoma magnivelare (matsutake), Cantharellus cibarius (chanterelle), Morchella esculenta (morel), and Amanita caesarea (Caesar's mushroom).

We found that the Oaxacan A. caesarea were as common as the LBMs (little brown mushrooms) we find locally and looked like those we found in Italy, unlike those found on the USA's East coast. A note from Mushrooms of Northeastern North America, A. Bessette, A. Bessette, & D. Fischer, 1997, p. 62: "North American collections of A. caesarea are often called A. umbonata, A. jacksonii or A. hemibapha; the group needs more study."

Next we drove north to El Punto, visiting woodworkers who turned a single piece of wood on a lathe to create molinos (mills), whose rings turned freely to whip chocolate into froth! Although a cabinetmaker, Lee had to work hard to complete even the first step. At the next village famous tortilla makers demonstrated their style - we were not successful in making tortillas, but we did well at eating them. We stopped briefly where oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) had been grown in a dirt-floored hut. Due to a fly infestation, the day before our visit the building had been cleaned up, so no mushrooms were present.

We then met our first local forager, Telly, to forage in a private campground owned by his brother. We found Lactarius indigo, Russula brevipes, Amanita caesarea, plus several other Amanitas and lots and lots of Russulas. We returned to Telly's restaurant where we were served the first of many moles, complex sauces requiring more than a dozen ingredients to be individually prepared. We ate both a mole amarillo with commercially grown oyster mushrooms, and a mole coloradito with Caesar's mushroom.

After lunch we drove to Itzlán, home of Benito Juárez (Mexico's Lincoln), checked into our hotel, and went to Lulu's, a local restaurant. Lulu and her family (all friends of Susana's) were delighted to see us and graciously allowed us to use their kitchen for a mushroom tasting - we were far too full for a meal! Lee and Mark cooked up a variety of mushrooms, including Lactarius indigo, Russula brevipes, Amanita caesarea and Lepiota procera (parasol mushroom).

Friday morning we drove higher into the mountains before arriving at Capulapan, where local foragers and biologists took us hunting in a protected area. We took our finds to the local Concinera, where we had lunch. We drove on to a school of herbal medicine for massages before a traditional Zapotec sweat lodge with herbs. Returning to Itzlán, we spent the night and had dinner at Lulu's, where Lee and Mark again did a tasting of our finds.

Saturday morning we visited a trout farm (one of two in the area) before driving higher into the mountains to Lachatao, where Lilia, supervisor of several natural resources in the area, and her assistants took us on a foray. We found lots of Amanitas and Russula brevipes, but only 1-2 matsutake. Enthusiasm for the habitat took us to a second site before we returned to town and cleaned the mushrooms. In the equivalent of a small, open-air town kitchen beside the town hall, the local Cocinera demonstrated various ways to cook over the traditional Zapotec wood-burning stove. After some wonderful chats with the cordial and hospitable Presidente, we took two quick side trips to check out some shiitake logs - they were not fruiting.

By now, rain was falling and it was getting dark: we can-celed a 4-hour hike on a pre-Hispanic path. Instead we piled into our van: Joaquin safely drove us on narrow dirt roads in steep mountains through pouring rain. Our destination was Yolanda's small restaurant, which doubled as the kitchen of her home; it had a dirt floor and the traditional Zapotec stove. Here for the first time we had squash-vine soup, rice served with sautéed plantains and a foil-baked whole trout stuffed with beans, carrots, and shiitake. After dinner we traveled a bit further to rustic cabins heated by fireplaces in Cuajimolojas, a small village in the cloud forest.

Following a delicious breakfast we met Joel, our guide for the day. Alas, the only porcinis on our foray were in the hands of a family of foragers. We ooh-ed and ahhh-ed over their finds and somehow fit the family into our van to give them a lift back to town. Back at the restaurant we had a wonderful meal: including two different moles, rice, and special local potatoes, all with wild mushrooms. We celebrated Joel's birthday with songs in both English and Spanish and presented him with small mushroom-related gifts. Joaquin then drove us back to Oaxaca, where we checked into our hotel, and then met for an excellent farewell dinner at a restaurant chosen by Joaquin, our underground gourmet.

Mushrooms in Oaxaca

Oaxaca and Chiapas are the poorest two states in Mexico. While select wild fungi can help small poor villages augment diet and meager incomes, the local people have few ways to learn about edible mush-rooms. In our brief visit to a half-dozen towns, we introduced some residents to new edible mushrooms: an almond-scented Agaricus, A. subrufescens, (local residents had not previously eaten any Agaricus), and Lepiota procera. Hunting and commercially raising mushrooms are limited because of lack of knowledge. Perhaps NAMA's Education Committee or another group might consider "mycological outreach", e.g., teaching local people how to identify other edible mushrooms and how to produce shiitake spawn.