Why are mushrooms so interesting? Is it because they thrive in the dark? Is it because of their expansive medicinal uses? Maybe it’s because they just taste so good, adding a depth to the dishes in which they are added. Whatever the reason, they are revered by foodies and mushroom aficionados alike, and on Jan. 30 Bedford Winery will celebrate the funky fungi.
Bedford Winery owner and event organizer Stephan Bedford said that because of their many uses people find mushrooms an interesting topic.
“I think people are amazingly fascinated by mushrooms from the historical aspects, the culinary aspects, and the medicinal aspects of what mushrooms are,” he said.
It was this fascination that launched the Bedford Winery mushroom festival and kept it going all these years. Throughout the decade it’s been in existence, Bedford Winery’s 10th Annual Mushrooms Gone Wild festival has been a hugely popular event bringing together mushroom and wine lovers for an afternoon of learning, discussion, and, of course, tasting.
Bedford said the event came into existence because of a local interest from people who would come in and want to identify the fungi and discuss their culinary usefulness. Bedford has long been interested in collecting and identifying mushrooms, as has been the winery’s tasting room manager. So it wasn’t a stretch to take their visitors’ curiosity about mushrooms and combine it with their interest in wine, giving people an opportunity to get their mushroom questions answered while expanding their appreciation for them.
“Talking to people, there’s such an interest in what’s growing around the area and people would ask, ‘How do you identify this?’” Bedford said. “And it has built up from there to tasting all these mushrooms, from chanterelles to truffles, and how to prepare them. It’s just escalated over the decades.”
The event offers plenty of opportunity to feed the mind as well as the appetite.
Each year local and cultivated mushrooms are featured at the event along with those brought in from Oregon. Attendees will find dried and fresh mushrooms and a multitude of varieties like chanterelles, hedgehogs, shiitake, porcini, oyster, and black trumpet. Guests will also have the opportunity to taste several mushroom-related appetizers throughout the event, served with a glass of Bedford wine. Dishes range from grilled buttons to complex layered patés, to wood-fired flatbreads and wine-infused curry prepared by Bedford and his culinary kitchen staff. There will also be plenty of ideas for infusing mushroom flavor into meals like using mushroom oils and mushroom salts.
“It’s amazing the spectrum of stuff that are mushroom based,” Bedford said. “I put some mushroom salt on potatoes and people say ‘You’re a genius.’”
Bedford said that after years of drought, the recent rains paired with some warm weather should create a great harvest of mushrooms.
Bedford often has Bob Cummings, a retired Santa Barbara professor who is considered in Santa Barbara County to be a leading expert on mushrooms, come out and discuss the fungi at the festival.
Exhibits of edible and nonedible mushrooms will be on display, and experts like Cummings will be on hand to discuss them. Topics range from identifying wild mushrooms to the impact of foraging on native resources. Bedford’s own extensive collection of mushroom-related books and field guides will also be available to those interested in expanding their fungus knowledge.
“We do have a lot of mushroom books. People claim I do these events to buy more mushroom books,” he said.
Bedford said the immense interest in mushrooms is evident in the large number of books written on the subject. For anyone interested in delving into mushroom facts, he said that specifically the Santa Maria Public Library has an impressive breadth of books on the subject for anyone wanting to brush up on mushroom knowledge before the event or to maybe pursue a new hobby.
He referred to books like Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora and Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Save the World, by Paul Stamets as evidence of the knowledge available on the topic.
“Use the library. It’s this incredible resource for people, not just in identifying them but also if you’re interested in mushroom cookery, like a lot of people are,” he said.
On the Central Coast, chanterelles are some of the more popular fungi for foragers. But many edible mushrooms have lookalike non-edible counterparts, which make mushroom education important for the amateur enthusiast.
The event is fun for both beginners and knowledgeable mushroom enthusiasts alike. But it’s usually a sold-out affair, so Bedford suggested making reservations in advance so that he can be sure to have enough food for everybody. Held in the Bedford Winery tasting room and courtyard, the event usually attracts about 100 people, Bedford said.
Contact Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 21-28, 2016.