Mushrooms are beloved across the globe for both culinary and medicinal purposes. They’re one of the most frequently foraged foods. Thistle’s rotating menu wouldn’t be complete without mushrooms. And we love sourcing them from King of Mushrooms, a Bay Area company with a heartfelt origin story and high quality selection of foraged and cultivated mushrooms.

The King of Mushrooms Story

Founder Todd Spanier credits most of his love for mushrooms and mushroom-hunting to family culinary traditions and his grandfather Ed Marcellini, a first-generation Italian American who hails from the Province of La Spezia in Italy, a mountainous area covered in a forest of chestnut trees. Perfect mushroom country. One continent over and several decades later in the Bay Area, a grandfather taught his five-year-old grandson the art of mushroom hunting. Todd was hooked. His grandfather’s hobby would soon become his own, and grow into a lifelong passion and vocation.

As a high-schooler, Todd began selling his foraged mushrooms to top restaurants in San Francisco. In 1986, his first customer was Chef Tooraj Sharif of restaurant Ecco. Through high school and college, it was a side business Todd worked to help pay his way through college. Then, in 1991, a summer as an exchange student in Lucca, Italy connected him more deeply to his roots and mushroom hunting. 

Todd’s great aunt lived in a small village near Borgotaro, famous for porcini mushrooms. Each Christmas when he was a boy, Aunt Lala sent the family a burlap sack of porcini mushrooms that she foraged and dried herself. Once in the family’s village, he foraged on the same hills his great Aunt Lala did. He feasted on the same red porcini sugo served with homemade chestnut ravioli.

“It was very emotional, very touching, and life-changing. Then the second time I went to Italy was when I was in college, and that was in 1994. I lived there for six months in Florence. I saw these mushroom boutiques that were selling wild mushrooms. I was like ‘Wow, this is a thing. People make a living doing this.’ So when I got back from Italy, I decided to open the company up in 1996 in Burlingame, CA and actually made it a legitimate entity. Twenty-five years later and I've never looked back.” 

Before such transformative experiences, Todd, was an international business and biology major at College of the East Bay with his sights set on working in biotechnology. “I was gearing up for an internship. But every day in class, my pager was going off, and then I would go to a payphone. I knew all the numbers of all the different chefs. I’d call them back and get their orders and then I'd go out and forage their mushrooms or wild greens order for their restaurant. And that's kind of how it started off in the beginning stages.” 

Over time, Todd started working with different mushroom farms so that he could provide mushrooms outside of the season. This enabled him to be more consistent with his clients, and it grew from there. When he started off, foraging took place around the Bay Area. Now the foraging happens all over the country, and even outside the US. Todd buys from a network of local, domestic, and international foragers.

Why the Name “King of Mushrooms”?

When Todd’s grandfather, Ed Marcellini, would take his grandkids out mushroom hunting, whoever found the most mushrooms or the biggest mushroom was crowned the king or queen of mushrooms. It’s no ceremonial role. Todd reminisces about his childhood: “Sometimes my sister would beat me out. She was the queen of mushrooms. You didn't have to cook dinner or help with dinner and you didn't have to wash dishes at night. So you always wanted to try to be the king or the queen, so you could sit at the dinner table and eat like royalty.” 

Mushrooms Explained

Consider this a refresher on high school biology, the fungi kingdom unit in particular. Mushrooms are a fungus that reproduce via microscopic spores. They consist of stems (stipe), a cap, and gills (example, portobello) or sponge (example, porcini) or teeth (example, lion’s mane) - which produce the spores and are located on the underside of the cap. 

Unlike plants, mushrooms require neither soil nor light to grow. They are broken into three groups: decomposers (like, oyster mushrooms), mycorrhizals (like, porcini), and parasitic (like, the largest mushroom in the world - honey mushroom). Decomposers get nutrients from substances like sawdust, straw, grain, or wood chips. Mycorrhizals get their nutrients in exchange for their symbiotic relationship with living trees. Parasitics kill living trees and plants to get their nutrition. 

There are tens of thousands of known varieties of mushrooms. Some popular edible mushrooms include white button, crimini, portobello, and shiitake. More adventurous wild varieties are maitake (also called “hen of the woods”), black trumpet, and porcini. While only 1-2% of mushrooms are deadly poisonous, it’s most important to note that all mushrooms should be cooked prior to consumption. Here at Thistle, we always cook our mushrooms.

As for their taste, mushrooms are a rich source of umami, which means “essense of deliciousness” in Japanese. Along with sweet, sour, salty, fat, and bitter, it’s one of the six basic tastes and is best described as savory. Mushrooms are an amazing meat substitute because the umami flavor makes for a rich meaty taste with savory depth. It sends an “I’m eating tasty meat right now” signal to your brain.

Mushrooms: What are the health benefits?

Mushrooms have a lot to offer. While different mushrooms provide different health benefits, they generally have a lot of health perks. Culinary mushrooms are:

• Low calorie
• Cholesterol-free
• Fiber-filled
• Rich in over a dozen vitamins and minerals
• High in antioxidants
• Immune-boosting
  

Meanwhile, medicinal mushrooms are often sold in powdered form and mixed into tea, etc. They have adaptogenic properties, which means they’re great at helping the body adapt to stress. Those like reishi boost immunity, strengthen respiratory function, and help fight fatigue and stress. That’s not all. There’s also evidence that regularly consuming medicinal mushrooms decreases inflammation, improves liver function, and lowers blood pressure. Most of our antibiotics are fungal-derived, including penicillin. 

King of Mushrooms Recipe Inspiration

While we talk about plant-based recipes a lot here at Thistle, we love fungi-based ones, too. Todd shares his approach to mushroom recipes: 

I love simplicity. And a lot of my favorite dishes change with the seasons with different mushrooms. My favorite dish reminds me of my grandfather. It's my first childhood memory of preparing mushrooms: marinated mushrooms. 

You can use any mushroom for this or you can use a mix of mushrooms. Boil the mushrooms in salt water until they settle underneath the water. Strain them then place in a salad bowl with white wine vinegar, shaved red onions, chopped celery, chopped parsley, and fresh garlic. Add any other fresh herbs that you enjoy like rosemary or thyme, and salt and pepper. Mix it all together and cover it all over with olive oil. That can hang out in the fridge as long as everything's covered in oil. It will last for weeks in the fridge. 

And then you can take that and put it over salad, a piece of protein, or nice crostini. This is one of my favorite things to cook. It's very simple. You can use any mushroom you want. Important to note, you’re not canning them, you're not jarring them, so you must keep them in the refrigerator. 

Buon appetito, Todd Marcellini Spanier

King of Mushrooms on Thistle’s Menu

Find King of Mushrooms Chef’s Mix Mushrooms and Oyster Mushrooms on our menu in delicious dinner entrees like Miso Polenta Bowl, Mushroom & Herb RightRice Bowl, and Risotto Verde. These mushrooms are all organically farmed here in California. 

For a great mushroom-rich plant-based meal to prepare on your own, try this Green Pesto & Veggie Lasagna recipe found on Thistle’s blog.

The Future of King of Mushrooms

Like any food company, the pandemic completely changed things for King of Mushrooms. Todd uses the phrase “reborn” when he speaks about the company’s new focus on retail clients. They are currently working on an informational app that customers can use when they visit the mushroom section of the grocery store. 

King of Mushrooms and Climate Change

Climate change impacts foraging in all regions. Todd shares, “I think we can all agree things have changed since we were younger. My grandfather was raised in San Francisco. He remembered when certain mushroom seasons would start. The fall season for porcini was usually in September, October. And now the fall season just keeps getting pushed back further and further and further. This year, we didn't see porcinis till January.” 

Some aspects of climate change have been beneficial for mushrooms and some have not been so beneficial. Certain conifer trees serve as host trees for mycorrhizal mushrooms. Millions and millions of these pine trees have died over California’s last seven-year drought episode. All the low elevation Ponderosa pines died. All the mushrooms who lived symbiotically with those pine trees are now gone. 

Climate change has proven beneficial to mushrooms in the Bay Area in at least one respect: a reduction in cases of fungal blights like sudden oak death disease, which is usually spread through torrential rains. With drought, oak trees are less vulnerable to fungal diseases. But overall, climate change’s effects are mostly unfortunate: destroyed habitats, unpredictable weather patterns, extreme heat, etc.

Many thanks to King of Mushrooms for providing Thistle with delicious mushrooms and for sharing your family’s passion of mushrooms. We are so on board with founder Todd’s efforts to make the adventure of foraging and the duty of environmental stewardship cool again.