The Small but Mighty Mushroom: Are fungi the key to a healthy belly and a happy planet? BY SABRINA KOOISTRA
Highline Mushrooms
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ushrooms are having a moment, and new varieties like oyster and lion’s mane are giving meat a run for their money. Many gourmet mushrooms add an earthy or nutty flavour, and for vegetarians, a great, meat-textured protein to press together into steaks or shred, like pork. They’re an affordable, clean protein, wellness shot, and earth healer, and they aren’t going away anytime soon – especially with many grow-at-home kits allowing us to take part in the farm-to-table movement in our own backyards. Luckily for us, Alberta is also home to many young, inspired, and passionate growers who are making a large-scale difference – one mushroom at a time. For Chantal Wang, of Planet Mushrooms, growing fungi was simply walking in her parents’ mushroom-
30 Culinaire | April 2021
growing footsteps. 10 years ago, she left China to study at the University of Alberta, but she struggled to find the mushrooms she used to eat. Alberta’s climate resembled her home in China, so she started growing her own mushrooms, eventually selling them at farmer’s markets. Some were skeptical of the mysterious mushrooms, but with the help of Albertans’ growing interest and Wang’s love of “the great fungi world,” Planet Mushrooms was born. Today, Wang grows shiitake, oyster, shimeji, enoki, reishi, and turkey tail mushrooms, to help you spice up a dish and shake up your proteins. She’s continuing to add to her inventory of mushroom grow kits, and is in the process of developing mushroom extracts to help with anxiety, immunity, and memory. With plans to expand to Calgary
markets, she invites customers to explore. You can find info on new products, mushroom research, and recipes in her e-newsletters (go to the footer of planetmushrooms.com to sign up!). Most of all, “be brave and be curious,” she says, “after you try them, you will be so surprised because they taste so good.” Nearly 60 years ago, Dr. Murray Roy O’Neil dreamt of a future of healthy
