Outside In | Chinese mushroom farming continues to flourish and diversify – much to the disdain and alarm of French and Italian truffle foragers
In 1983, Japan accounted for 82pc of world production of Shiitake mushrooms. Today, China accounts for 89pc, and Japan’s share has dwindled to 7.3pc
There are only a few occasions in my life when I have truly terrified my long-suffering daughters, but one of them was after a cold and muddy mushroom-hunt in the UK almost exactly 30 years ago.
Back then, I was a passionate amateur mycologist. The house was littered with odd, somberly illustrated books about fungi.
Most weekends I would don wellington boots and stride off into obscure woodlands in the counties around London. The musty mystery and elusiveness of them fascinated me.
So often, I would find nothing. But what a thrill to stumble across a colony of majestic parasol mushrooms, or a huge cauliflower-like sparassis erupting from a tree stump, or a sprinkling of chanterelles almost-successfully passing themselves off as scattered autumn leaves.
So fascinating too to find tree-ears sprouting from the branches of elder trees – though I always found it embarrassing that the normal deeply racist English term for them was “Jews’ Ears”.
Since 2013, Chinese farmers have been artificially cultivating truffles on a large scale, with Yunnan alone producing 200 tonnes in 2015. Exports that year were worth US$1.5 billion
I would often take my daughters off into the forest with me. It was good autumn exercise, and was better than McDonald's or a shopping centre. I think they begrudgingly enjoyed the eccentric adventures into damp misty forests. They certainly had no objection to me photographing whatever mushrooms we found. But anxiety rose whenever I began picking those in good enough condition to add to dinner.