Autumn's Jewels: Preserving Mushrooms, a Family Recipe
The Tradition of Living Beautifully, Issue #48
The richness in eating with the seasons is not only that you’re enjoying produce grown in its natural time, so that it’s at peak flavor and nutrition, although that’s definitely a large part of it, but it’s also that certain foods, and the traditions surrounding them, come to gain a ritualized beauty. Instead of just stuffing our faces with whatever we pick up off the supermarket shelf, giving no thought to where the food came from, we begin to re-engage with the earth and the rhythms of divine design that change the world around us, as they’ve been doing for centuries.
For my family and me, the rituals are tomato and eggplant in the summer, wine and mushroom in the autumn. When the mushrooms arrive on my mother’s back porch, brought to her by friends knowledgeable about foraging, I know summer is behind us. I know we’re in autumn, now, and it’s time to prepare for the long winter.
In autumn, when I was younger, when the air turned crisp and the leaves changed color, my father would come home from work with bins of wild mushrooms. As he went about taking care of clients’ properties, he paid attention to who had mushrooms growing in their yards, or bordering their trees, and so on. He would pick them as he worked, knowing that my mother would then transform them into one of the most delicious foods in her arsenal, mushrooms preserved in oil. In other words, it was an autumn tradition.
The mushrooms used in this family recipe, which I’ve included below, are maitake, or as their more commonly called, “hen of the woods.” My father would also bring home portabella mushrooms. Glorious, enormous fresh portabellas, which would keep my mother cleaning and preserving for days in the kitchen. One autumn, he came home with several garbage cans full of them, and my parents called his cousins, who drove up excited and eager from Long Island to spend the day cleaning them together, then each household left with its own portion. That’s how you make tradition. That’s how food—fresh, quality ingredients—becomes a ritual for community to gather around.
Although I’m sharing this recipe below, I can’t teach you how to forage for mushrooms. A google search will probably get you there, but I don’t feel comfortable sharing a how-to in that aspect, as I’m certainly no expert. When my father was still alive, I would go with him now and again to look for mushrooms, but I always just tagged along, relying on his expertise to pick the right thing. Mushrooms can be dangerous, of course, if you eat poisonous ones, so be sure you have a good handle on what you’re looking for before you head out foraging.
I also actually don’t preserve these mushrooms myself; I help my mother do so if she needs help, and then I steal jars she’s made, just like everyone else around me does. I take a lot of photos and video, write down the steps and the like, watch her closely, so that one day I will be able to take over the job. Yes, I know, I’m very fortunate.
I imagine you’d be able to purchase fresh maitake somewhere near you as well, since they’re in season. It’s worth talking to the farmers at your local farmer’s market and asking if you can get your hands on any.
How many mushrooms to use really depends on how many you find or can acquire, so it’s very difficult to give a “add two cups of mushrooms” type recipe. I’ve used the example throughout the recipe of a 6-quart pot; if you find you only have enough mushrooms to fill half that size, say, a 3-quart pot, then simply halve the vinegar and water throughout the recipe. The process is not hard, but it is a process, so take joy in the presence of autumn as you work and enjoy some time to savor the season.