Information of shiitake mushroom

Shiitake

(Lentinus edodes)

Shiitake has been known for quite a long time as a cultivated mushroom. The first notations of primitive cultivation originate in the Middle East ca 800 years ago.

Shiitake entered Finland in 1978, when the food laboratory of VTT began the research on shiitake cultivation. In 1983, the first commercially produced lots of shiitake came to the market in South West Finland.

In the beginning, the volumes of production were increasing steadily until the downtrend at the beginning of 90’s. Nevertheless, the volumes have been increasing steadily again since 1995. In 2003, the shiitake production totalled ca 300 tons per year. The production is centred in Eastern and Western Finland.

Cultivation

Shiitake is decay fungus cultured on a variety of sawdust culture logs. Such logs are in the form of a long loaf and apart from the sawdust of leaf tree, it contains also grain to some extent. This kind of cultivation log features faster decaying process than traditional chump cultivation. It means that rotation is faster and cultivation facilities are used more effectively.

Our Nordic climate conditions make this even further more important because shiitake must be cultivated in controlled conditions indoors. Cultivation facilities must be clean and air-conditioned featuring proper air filtering. Obviously, this increases expenses, but at the same time, ensures high quality of domestic products when compared with chump cultivated products. Almost all domestic shiitake products are officially recognized as organically grown – very important point for products exported to customers abroad.

Shiitake mushroom is reasonably laborious to culture; work contribution of one person results in turnover of app. 35 000 euros. Thus profitable culturing of shiitake is typically a family business where contribution of owner(s) is vitally important. A number of industrial companies all over world have faced this bottom line. 

As an exported product shiitake is essentially profiting national economy since production all the way through is mainly of domestic origin. With the exception of energy, production of shiitake requires no importing, what so ever. Currently, half of the shiitake production is exported.

Usage of shiitake

Shiitake is solid fleshed mushroom dry content of which is higher than that of mushrooms generally. Therefore shiitake is highly preservable; when preserved in optimal temperature shiitake can be used up to three weeks after harvesting. Furthermore, even small portion of raw shiitake is plenty because it shrinks clearly less than most forest mushrooms when pan-fried.All this results in the fact that the amount of shiitake consumed is lower than that of most other mushrooms used in cooking.

Flavour of shiitake evidently resembles that of typical forest mushrooms while being stronger than taste of champignon. Indeed, at its best, shiitake is prepared as forest mushrooms as well in soups, stews, and lightly fried on a pan. Due to potential allergy responses, presently shiitake is not recommended to be consumed as raw, same being true for most forest mushrooms.

Jaakko Mikkola

Links

• www.kotimaisetkasvikset.fi
  
• www.champ.fi
  
• www.luomu.fi