The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen: A Culinary Homage to Wild and Cultivated Mushrooms―with 120 Recipes

 

The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen is an accessible and beautifully photographed tutorial and recipe guide by Chad Hyatt. Originally published in 2018, this reformat and re-release from The Experiment is 288 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This guide is divided into thematic sections. The intro contains abbreviated foraging and plant lists with photos and info for IDing and safely foraging fungi, followed by recipes arranged by category to use the foraged bounty.

Recipes include an introduction, bullet list of ingredients, and step by step preparation instructions. Ingredient measures are provided in imperial (American) units only. Many of the ingredients will require both foraged items and access to a well stocked specialist grocer. The recipes are peppered with additional tips/substitutions/and tricks to improve outcomes in small highlighted text boxes. It should be noted that many of the recipes contain meat and/or dairy and are not vegetarian/vegan, and that they'll require some adapting to make them non-meat/dairy friendly.

The recipes are accompanied by full color photos, including preparation pictures. The photos are a high point of the book, and serving suggestions are very attractive and well styled. The author/publisher have also included an abbreviated bibliography/resources and a cross-referenced index to the book's content.

Four and a half stars. This would be an excellent choice for public library acquisition, for home use, for smallholders and self sufficiency folks, and for gift giving. It's lovely to see a burgeoning appreciation for foraging and using local fresh ingredients.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.