Mushrooms, do I have to pick? By Brian Abbey Seattle

 Hi, my name is Brian Abbey and I have a confession to make. I love mushrooms. Eating them. Cooking them. Photographing them. Growing up in Seattle, mushrooms are everywhere. I mean, it does rain here a lot after all. And what pops up after a good rain in the spring or the fall, but a whole bunch of different mushrooms. From the Puget Sound to Leavenworth and beyond, you can find endless varieties. Colors, shapes, textures, all vary so much that to look down at your feet is to find a whole new world of fungi a few weeks of the year.


But why should I, Brian Abbey, care about mushrooms?

Mushrooms are unique in the natural world, in that they are not plants, nor are they animals. They are part of the kingdom Fungi, of which there are a few hundred thousand known varieties, and likely countless more. But the really cool thing, is that they are the primary decomposers in the natural world. Whether they live on the ground, on a tree, or on some not-so-fresh-fruit in your fridge that is starting to mold, they do some pretty extraordinary things for us, like helping breakdown waste in the natural environment in ways that very little else can.



Mushrooms break down cellulose fibers in organic matter (even wood!), including toxic compounds in the soil like oil. Science is developing ways to use fungi to help remediate living systems that have been contaminated, and they are also discovering the profound benefits of mushrooms, in the human brain and body. We already know that the lifesaving drug penicillin was developed from mold (a type of fungi), and scientists and researchers are studying the effect of certain mushrooms on the human brain and body, and are seeing tremendous therapeutic and medicinal use of mushrooms. Mushrooms are being tested for cancer research, and the City of Seattle just decriminalized their possession and use recreationally.



Since discovering a passion for mushrooms through books such as All the Rain Promises and More by David Arora and the film Fantastic Fungi, I have been cooking with all the varieties I can find in local stores and farmers markets such as Oysters, Shiitake, Lobster, Lions Mane, and more.



At the onset of fall and beginning of spring, one of my favorite things to do with my girlfriend is photograph mushrooms after a rain in Seattle or Leavenworth, or somewhere in the foothills of the Cascades where the soil is wet and the plants material is abundant. The key to getting really great photos is to wipe off the lens of your cell phone camera and place it down low, with the lens side close to the earth near the stalk, underneath the cap. It takes some trial and error, but if you stick with it, you’ll catch a glimpse of this whole little universe, you just have to slow down and look for it.

All Photographs copyright Brian Abbey, 2021

Taken in or around Leavenworth and Seattle, WA



Location: Seattle, WA, USA

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