The bi-annual ag tour conference took us to the organic raw honey company - Volcano Island Honey (run by proud card carrying old hippie attorney who escaped to Hawaii), the pristine mushroom farm, Hamakua Mushrooms, and the high mountain vanilla cafe at Hawaii Vanilla. Check out how they grow the mushrooms - in clean sterilized wood chip base - not dirt/manure/chemicals (we learned). At the vanilla place they served us lunch and my meal (the only vegetarian I think) was a dish of the incredible Ali'i Mushrooms from the Hamakua Farm. WOW - these are all about eating the stem, not just the cap, and the stems are solid, meaty in texture (dare I say?) and a really tasty - complex flavor.
Everything in the meal had a little bit of vanilla somewhere in it - the raisins in the mushroom stir fry ( with onions garlice kabota squash and parsely), the foccacia appetizer, the ice cream dessert, and even the final coffee.
Much to my surprise, one of the trip highlights was that I ended up at the back of the line at the mushroom farm and scored all of the samples. That is them on the green plate - the lighter big ones are the Ali'i, the strange ruffled red ones are an endemic Hawaiian they are just getting ready to start selling. I've done a few stirfrys with them - one mixed into a re-heated eggplant parmesan that was excellent.
And I am new to the idea that mushrooms are not a 'plant' ! Did you know that ? Certainly not an animal or a mineral, so what ARE they ?
(brings to mind some old children's rhyme about the 'fungus amongus ;)
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