Every town seems to defi ne itself with a “first” or “only” or “largest” claim to fame. For Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, the newly painted water tower proclaims it all: Mushroom Capital of the World. Those in the know (and there are more than 100,000 of them each year now) elbow in to the town’s biggest event—the annual fall mushroom festival. It’s a foodie’s fête consisting of everything you could possibly think of making from mushrooms. Plus a few things you could not possibly think of. Anyone game for mushroom ice cream? How about a nice spiced mushroom cake for dessert? To the crowd meandering among various fungi-themed booths, nothing appears to be too weird to sample. Yet the festival’s planners have been thoughtful: For those not given to enjoying fungus in various forms, there are other things to do.
A Unique Event
A parade, crafts, rides, contests, puppets, live music, farm tours and more—they’re all part of the Annual Mushroom Festival, scheduled September 6 and 7 in eastern Pennsylvania (www.mushroomfestival.org). In Kennett Square that weekend, there will even be dancing in the streets to wind up the affair. But the mushroom-related items and activities are, naturally, the big draw. Where else can you fi nd mushroom Christmas cards, wild mushroom lasagna, and mushroom t-shirts with sayings like “Shiitake Happens”? Mushroom toadstools for your garden, mushroom popsicles, white truffle oil, pumpkin mushroom ice cream, Italian porcini salt, fresh goat’s milk truffle cheese, soup called Fungus Among Us, mushroom potato chips, mushroom lunch boxes, magnets, jewelry, and, for the faint of heart, some non-mushroom ice cream featuring white chocolate toadstools. You can kick it up a notch personally and bob for mushrooms, run in the new 5K race, vote in the mushroom soup contest, shop, enter your tiny tot in the first Cute as a Button photo contest, or, under the big tent, watch a live cooking show where edgy combinations of odd-looking ’shrooms occur. If this sounds like way too much activity, there’s always the slightly less riveting Mushroom Judging Contest.
More About Mushrooms
If you’re curious about the fungi themselves, a brief history is mounted in the mini-museum located in The Mushroom Cap store on West State Street. Even better, we recommend a tour of a local mushroom farm. There you can meet the mushroom royalty of Chester County. These specialists will personally walk you around their farms, which feature no typical outdoor fi elds with waving green stalks. Instead, you’ll be guided inside a dank, cool building one grower describes as so moist it “sometimes feels like a rain forest.” Here, mushroom spores are carefully coddled at precise temperature and humidity levels.
Mushroom farming has changed; it has expanded from a winter-only crop to a year-round operation.
Fortunately, because they use sterilized compost, there is very little of the strong odor historically associated with driving through Kennett Square. You can talk with long-time area farmers who remember the era when everything was done by hand, including forking the manure used back then as fertilizer. These days much of the process is automated, and compost and peat moss are used instead. However, growing mushrooms remains a labor-intensive process, requiring 13-hour workdays and middle-of-the-night monitoring. And the mature spores are still harvested by hand. Mushroom farming has changed in other ways, though; it has expanded from a winter-only crop to a year-round operation. Vince Basciani of Basciani Mushroom Farms explains that they use 40-45 tons of air conditioning to be able to grow mushrooms all summer. The AC is critical to keep the seeds from being burned up in hot weather, since the internal temperature of the compost can rise as high as 152 degrees. The heat and moisture can make working in the nursery challenging, and even a tour may contain a few uncomfortably warm moments. Even if you aren’t converted to a potential mushroom grower, you’ll likely be the only person in your neighborhood who has toured a mushroom farm. Equally gratifying, at the end of the tour, you are presented with a tray of very, very fresh mushrooms to take home. Plus you can exchange culinary ideas along the way.
The conversation we overheard went like this: “What’s your favorite mushroom recipe?” “Stuffed mushrooms.” “What do you stuff yours with?” “Spreadable cheese.” “Sausage and cream cheese.” “Amy, what’s your secret for your cream of mushroom soup?” “A little sherry.” “I like my wife’s oyster mushroom fritters.” “What’s that thing you do with the garlic?” “Oh, you mean the salad with the chopped up mushrooms?” “Yeah. What do you put in that?” “Quartered mushrooms, fresh garlic, mayo, lemon juice and Italian dressing.” “Love that stuff.”
A National Craze
From the statistics, it’s clear that average consumers are incorporating more mushrooms into their daily lives, and people come from all over for this particular festival. The media, meanwhile, is serving up its own fungi features. The Food Network rates the Kennett Square happening among America’s top festivals; TV’s Top Chef has filmed several episodes during the fest, which made Travelocity’s Local Secrets, Big Finds list; and Smithsonian Magazine.com includes it as “one of the most interesting cultural events around the globe.”
It’s gotten to the point where even the health foodies are getting in on the craze. This summer Weight Watchers has elevated the mushroom to star status as its Pick of the Season. Mushrooms, which have been growing in popularity and variety, were chosen because a two-cup serving, while filling and rich in nutrients, has a “point value” of zero (meaning you can enjoy it guilt-free under the most famous weight loss program in the country). This year a Weight Watchers exhibit will be located inside the gigantic inflatable mushroom.
Bringing It All to Life
Behind the mushroom, so to speak, is a rather large group of helpers that makes the festival happen. Jan Chadwick, treasurer of the event, jokes that it takes “13 months a year” to set the event in motion. The 200 volunteers who help during the celebration, along with the 170 or so vendors, are rounded up by festival coordinator Kathi Lafferty and her crew.
“There are so many things to do,” says Lafferty, “but we get it done, and the community is really great.” Proceeds from the festival all go to benefi t local charities; even the new Cute as a Button baby photo judging is designed to raise money to help others. You can buy votes—and vote as often as you like—by throwing your loose change in the contest barrels in front of each finalist’s photo. (To enter your own cute tot, go to www.mushroomfestival.org.) Just about every cash-generating event helps fill the coffers of area nonprofi ts, so you can eat, shop, and vote with a clear conscience.
“We’re looking forward to a good year," says Lafferty. “With the addition of the 5K run and the Cute as a Button contest we can now say we have something for all ages, even infants,” she says, laughing. “We also have all-new children’s rides and kids’ entertainment, so that’s a plus.” Lafferty describes the event as “a small-town street festival that has grown to be a national event” and says they’re receiving requests for brochures from all over the country. “I think with the gas prices people are looking for things to do that are closer to home, but there’s some who come from far away who make it here every year.”
Soup Stars
Lafferty’s favorite fungus treat is mushroom soup. “We have a lot of restaurants around here that have very different versions,” she says. She mentions one local place that makes “an exotic mushroom soup with a lot of bite to it.” As Lafferty is out and about, she samples various mushroom soups and, when she fi nds an exceptional variation, tries to convince its creator to come to the festival to serve that soup.
Between the amateur mushroom soup cookoff and the pro version, in which local chefs take part, there are quite a few variations to compare at the festival. Last year’s winners were a Wild Mushroom Soup with Lump Crab from Catherine’s Restaurant in Unionville and a Mushroom ’n Butternut Squash Soup with Brown Sugar Cream by
Jacqueline McComas of Paoli. Other popular amateur entries were a Bloody Mary Mushroom Soup and one encrusted with gorgonzola and croutons.
On the professional side, this year Bryan Sikora of Talula’s Table will be demonstrating a variety of dishes starring—of course—mushrooms. The recipe for one of Bryan’s most popular items, his Wild Mushroom Lasagna. Bryan’s culinary prowess has become so well known that there is now a full year’s wait for one of the 12 chairs at the table where his intimate, weekly dinners are served (information at www.talulastable.com).
Other nearby restaurants will be featuring specialties incorporating mushrooms as well. Head chef Richard Halka and his wife, pastry chef Evelyn Halka, who own the State Street Grille, always push themselves to be innovative for the festival. Year-round their menu features some fungi-related dish, but for the big event they say they try to “ramp it up.”
Bryan recalls, “The very first mushroom festival we did [four years ago], we put our foot forward with mushroom everything, and we change it up every year. People kept saying, ‘Finally, here are the mushrooms!’ so we’ve kept it up.” Last year their booth featured a chicken and wild mushroom quesadilla with oyster, shiitake and portabella mushrooms; bacon-wrapped scallop and shiitake skewers; some rather generously sized fried portabella cutlets; wild mushroom ravioli; and a temptingly lush
grilled portabella and squash sandwich.
"People love the novelty of eating mushrooms for dessert."
Evelyn Halka finds that people love the novelty of eating mushrooms for dessert. To that end she has created an original mushroom tart topped with a mushroom-shaped toile. To head the mushrooms in the direction of dessert flavors, she fi rst soaks them in apple jack. “Mushrooms work with so many different kinds of international cooking and all different kinds of applications,” says Evelyn, “because they soak up whatever you’re trying to infuse them with.” This year the chef/pastry chef team is working on some new ideas and, at last report, was considering a mushroom strudel, a sort of savory dinner dish.
Clearly, if you like mushrooms at all, this is your event. Just be prepared. Everywhere you go, you’ll see people eating mushrooms on pizza, mushrooms on sausage, mushrooms on sticks; people wearing mushroom shirts; people talking about mushrooms; people wearing mushroom hats; people selling mushroom soup; and more.
Lafferty concludes that to understand the fungus fête, you must attend it: “It is a unique experience. It’s got small-town charm; the excitement builds all summer, and this town comes alive during the festival.”
PLANNING YOUR VISIT 23rd Annual Mushroom Festival Kennett Square, PA | September 6 & 7, 2008 A comprehensive guide to the event is found online at www.mushroomfestival.org
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