sMAll Bites
by Emily Patrick
send your food news to food@mountainx.com
Grow your own
FREE FRY UPGRADE with purchase of Veggie Burger
exp. 12/26/12
Available for retail purchase at: French Broad Co-op, Westvillage Market, Earth Fare, Trout Lilly & Ingles
(828) 232-0738 • 116 North Lexington Ave
If you eat white button, creminis or portobello mushrooms — all of which are the same species at different ages — you’re likely eating mushrooms that grew in a manure-filled warehouse in Pennsylvania, explains Chris Parker. Parker and his partner Joseph Allawos are the co-owners of Asheville Fungi: Mushroom Central, which opened on Saturday, Dec. 15, in West Asheville. They want to provide Asheville’s restaurants and home cooks with a source for locally grown mushrooms as well as the material they need to grow their own fungi. It’s a two-part business. The lower level houses a grow room where Allawos and Parker cultivate mushroom species such as lion’s mane, king oyster, blue oyster, king stropharia, black poplar, and maitake, also known as hen of the woods. Upstairs is retail space marketed toward home-growers. “We’re trying to grow more than just shiitake,” Allawos says. They want to introduce Asheville diners to varieties that are hard to find in gro-
40 DECEMBER 19 - DECEMBER 25, 2012 • mountainx.com
Mushroom Central lets you DIY, or gives you the real-deal fungi
tAste the MAgic: There are no psychedelics at Mushroom Central, but the cooking mushrooms might just blow up your mind. Photos by Max Cooper