I'm mushroom babysitting this week. Yep, squealing, grumpy little mushroom babies. Just kidding. It's mycellium, in a bucket, which hasn't fruited yet because like Goldilocks, it wants the conditions to be just right. And my girlfriend's going off on holiday and they might fruit whilst she's away, and she doesn't trust her babysit to look after the blue oysters. Then I'm away on the 6th, so it strikes me I might need a mushroom babysitter as well. Sigh. Sometimes mushrooms just don't fit into life plans.

Nameko

A friend of mine gave me some small packs of Japanese mushroom miso soup, made with nameko, which he says has a kind of slimy texture and are valued for this in Japan, where they are collected wild or cultivated. Now I know about them I must see if I can hunt them down in a market or something. They act as a natural thickener in the soup and apparently have an earthy, nutty taste.

^{Image via Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay}

I have found a supplier here and discovered they're also known as butterscotch mushroom. Wierd. I'm growing an oyster mushroom called by this same name, but it's not the same species - I suspect it's just because of it's tan colour. I was about to purchase a box but my supplier had run out. Later in the season, maybe - they like colder weather, like much colder weather, so I am not sure I can grow them well here. Still, everything is worth trying once, right?

Mushoom Burial Suits

Last week Hive account@stephen-patrick reminded me of Luke Perry being buried in a mushroom suit. It's basically a biodegradable burial shroud made from mushroom spores, which help decompose the body and filter toxins from mit so it doesn't contaminate surrounding land or plant life. I'm not really sure how much of a problem that is in a cemetery, but hey, it's better than using up resources such as timber for coffins and clothing, which has it's own ethical concerns. The creator of the 'Infinity Burial Suit' wanted to change people's relationship with death and encourage their acceptance of it. Mushrooms, being the great decomposers and recyclers of the forest floor, have a tendency to do this. I remember being in a pine forest with an irregular heart beat thinking I was going to die, and suddenly feeling quite calm about it. It seemed a really lovely thing to do to rot on the forest floor and be consumed by mushrooms, to feed life as my life ended. Macabre, maybe - or perhaps mushrooms just enable us to accept our place in the cycle of life and death.

Mushroom Suits

And so, inspired by burial suits, I irreverently prompted Midjourney to come up with an image for 'mushroom suit', knowing that 'corpse' and 'death' is not something Midjourney engages with - taboo subjects, and ones that may be manipulated for nefarious purposes like 'breast' and 'lovers'. Sigh. Sex and death hey?

And so, Midjourney delivers something else. Quite - cute. I can imagine the mushrooms donning suits and pretending to be human - not very well, but passable. Mycellial threads stuffed into boots and stockings. There's something quite charming about them, and something a little spooky.

As usual, it's hard to choose a favourite. I am beginning to slip deeper into these mycellium musings, these imagined and real worlds of mushrooms. If I disappear, this is where I'll be - either dancing with mushroom beings in mushrooms suits or being eaten by fungi on the forest floor. Not a bad way to go, by my reckoning.

Which one do you like the best?

I hope you are enjoying my #fungifriday posts. I must say I'm enjoying the opportunity to explore this natural world further, and writing about it really gives me a chance to do that.

What fungi related stories, facts or curiousities have piqued your interest this week? Drop me a comment below!