The Vancouver Mycological Society held its annual Mushroom show last Sunday at the Floral Hall of VanDusen Botanical Garden. Admission was only $3 and with that attendees got to taste various mushroom dishes, attend presentations and look all the various mushrooms found in the Lower Mainland. Other mushrooms and cooked mushroom food were available for purchase, as well as grow-your-own-mushroom kits from Scott Henderson, the Mushroom Man.

Interesting mushroom presentations were held in the Cedar Room. I arrived just as one was about to start so decided to sit in.

I attended the first talk about Magic Mushrooms, presented by Paul Kroeger, one of the founding members of the Vancouver Myological Society. Apparently "magic mushrooms", which are mushrooms that have psychedelic effects when ingested and were first recorded used in Mexico, are also found in BC! The first recorded use was in 1965 at UBC!

It was an interesting talk to say the least. I've never knew about these mushrooms before! They produce hallucinations, emotional effects, changes in perception of depth, swirly patterns, even when your eyes are closed. Trippy!

The main hall held displays of various mushrooms. Lots and lots of them and all kinds of varieties!



These are "magic mushrooms"!




 Puffball

Orange peel fungi

If you forage for wild mushrooms, you must be %100 sure of that it is before you eat it! There are some poisonous look-a-likes!




Some people brought in their own unknown mushrooms for experts to ID.

Outside, Scott Henderson was selling mushrooms and mushroom growing kits coming in two flavours: oysters and shitake. I met him before when I attended his mushroom cultivation workshop at the Homesteaders Emporium. I showed him some pictures of my oyster mushrooms that were growing funky and he gave me some more tips.




I tried the enoki tempura for $4. It tastes really delicious with the sauce which is a mix of soya sauce, honey and some kind of spicy sauce. It didn't taste spicy though. It's really the texture that you are going for, the tempura didn't really have any taste without the sauce.

Lastly, there was a cooking demo stand where attendees can watch and taste yummy mushrooms being incorporated into ordinary dishes. Mmmmmmmushrooms! Mushrooms are actually very healthy for you and are a good source of Vitamin D and help boost your immune system!

Rice, chanterelles, shaggy manes, cremini, oysters, green onions, cooked in white wine. Mmmm.


 There was also soup to taste. The one on the left is cream of chanterelle and the right is a morel broth.

Here's what in the morel broth. I think both soups were cooked in chicken stock. I couldn't really taste the mushroom in the chanterelle one but I could in the morel. It had an earthy taste and an spongy but slightly crunchy texture. I like it!



 Cook chopping up the mushrooms.

Which went into creating a Fettuccine pasta with lots of cream sauce, parmesan, romano, and asiago cheese!  It's a very rich dish. I think more mushrooms are needed! I can only taste the cream lol.