We just had some kind of mushroom
Mixt Salads recipe #2: Noodle
Last night, I was going to make Heaven (chanterelles and duck eggs) but Isabel was so aghast I put it off and made Noodle instead.
Andrew Swallow gives all his recipes names and the reason for this one is obvious. Noodle consists of cool Japanese soba noodles tossed with a miso dressing and lots of vegetables: sprouts, cucumber, red bell peppers, enoki mushrooms. "It looks like the compost!" Owen said, not unkindly. We all liked and ate the salad.
But about enoki mushrooms.
All fungi are freaky. Usually I can handle it. I do think, though, that the enoki is freakier than most because it's skinny and albino and has a pinhead. Plus, it travels in a pack, so you're faced with hundreds of skinny albino pinheads.
The enokis came from Korea and I told myself I really liked them as I snacked on them while I was making the salad and later as I ate them in the salad. They're sweet, bland, and refreshing. But, of course, flavor isn't everything. We had to go to Isabel's back-to-school night and as I sat there listening to the cute algebra teacher talk about study groups my mind kept wandering back to those sickly, spidery mushrooms that had traveled from Korea in a plastic pouch. I thought about this Haruki Murakami story called "Crabs." It's an amazing story, but I can't recommend that you read it because every time you feel irrationally uneasy about something you ate, you'll remember "Crabs" and feel even uneasier.
My aversion to enokis is not Andrew Swallow's fault. Noodle was a modest success, and we enjoyed it a lot more than Mashup. May the upward trend continue.
Meanwhile, a new cache discovered in the garden today contained 18 filthy eggs.
I think this might just be the most unappetizing food post on the entire internet today.
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