Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008 - (Page 28)

chasing the rain “i know this sounds weird, but smell this. Go ahead. Smell it.” Here at the classy Café Beaujolais in Mendocino, Eric Schramm, a burly lumberjack of a fellow, extends a small leather pouch for his dinner companions to sniff. It hangs off a short cord around his neck, and he apparently doesn’t mind that patrons are staring when his friends lean in to get a whiff of this golf ball-sized sack. “Go ahead,” he encourages. “Tell me what it smells like.” Comrades confer briefly and then agree: maple syrup. Definitely maple syrup. Like a magician about to divulge a secret, Eric empties the contents of his pouch into his palm to reveal shriveled scraps of tan-colored fungi. These aromatic slivers are pieces of candy cap, a hard-to-find mushroom regarded as gold in the fungi world. Only 400 pounds are produced annually, and luckily for Eric about 100 of those pounds come from Mendocino County in Northern California, where he lives. He attests that some 3,000 different kinds grow wild in the region. Among Mendonesians, mycologists, and food buyers, the resident is a celeb. He’s known as The Mushroom Man, King of the Candy Caps, and owner/founder/czar of Mendocino Mushrooms. Cheerful and upbeat, he ambles about town wearing jeans, that pouch necklace, and a mushroom print t-shirt. This wholesale mushroom 28 Broughton Quarterly Spring 2008 Eccentricity is no stranger in the misty climes of Northern California, where epicurean delights sprout magically from cracks in the forest floor and Eric Schramm—“the Mushroom Man”—follows the rainfall to his destiny. By Kathy Chin Leong Photos by Bruce Lewis (unless otherwise noted) broker has been involved in foraging, buying, and selling for over 25 years. Mendocino Mushrooms harvests about 60,000 pounds of wild mushrooms annually. The Blue Wing Saloon and Café in Lake County uses locally harvested mushrooms in seasonal specials such as chanterelle mushroom tartlet. And Café Beaujolais uses the coveted candy cap for its signature dish, one of the best sellers—the broiled sturgeon with candy cap mushroom sauce. In fact, Mendocino restaurateurs are so fascinated with the candy cap, they delight in concocting recipes for candy cap ice cream, cookies, crème brulee, and anything else to glorify its sweet flavor. “I’ve been looking for the candy cap my whole life,” says David LaMonica, the executive chef and owner of Café Beaujolais. “I read about Eric and hunted him down. He’s so trusting that when I came to his house to buy $400 worth of mushrooms, he told me he’d bill me later.” Eric fulfills nearly all of LaMonica’s candy cap and miscellaneous ‘shroom needs, and the restaurant owner says Eric hasn’t given him one “bogus mushroom” yet. “He definitely knows his stuff.” Eric, by the way, notes that there has never been a poison report in the industry.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008

Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008 Contents Contributors Plugged In Notes Destination 1000 Words Calendar Wine & Cuisine Of Gods and Monkeys Santa Monica Beach Chasing the Rain Donald Trump Marketplace Spotlight

Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.