Choice
Shiitake
Lentinula edodes
The character that does the work
Not a foraging species outside its native range. This entry exists because it is the easiest species to grow on logs at home.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
4 to 12 cm, tan to dark brown, often cracking into a pale mosaic in dry air, with remnants of a white veil at the margin.
02Underside
Crowded white gills, notched where they meet the stem, browning with handling.
03Stem, and the base
Tough and fibrous, central or slightly off-centre.
04Flesh, cut
White, firm.
05Spore print
White to cream
How to take one06Where it grows
Cultivated on hardwood logs and sawdust blocks. Wild in East Asia on dead hardwood.
When to look
Cultivated, so it has no season. This is the argument for growing it.
Native to East Asia, cultivated worldwide.
What is worth knowing about it
The practical answer to almost every identification worry: inoculate a hardwood log with plug spawn, wait a year, and harvest a known species for six years or more. The one caution is culinary rather than mycological. Raw or undercooked shiitake causes a striking whip-mark rash in a small percentage of people, called shiitake dermatitis, caused by lentinan and destroyed by proper cooking.
Confused with
- Not applicable in cultivation
In the kitchen
Cook thoroughly, always. Discard or stockpot the stems, which stay woody. Dried shiitake are a different and more intense ingredient than fresh, not a substitute for them.
The techniques, and why they workGrowing it
Sold as a supplement
The most sensible entry on this page, because you can simply cook and eat it. Shiitake is genuinely nutritious food with a licensed pharmaceutical derived from one of its compounds, and those two facts are not the same fact.
The claims, graded by what the evidence actually isThis page tells you what to check. It does not tell you the mushroom in your hand is that species, and it cannot. If you are not certain, do not eat it. If you have already eaten something and feel unwell, contact a poison centre and keep an uncooked specimen.
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