Mushroom soup offers a memorable taste of the festival

By Chris Barber Contributing Writer

Probably the best way to savor the memory of the Kennett Square’s 2022 Mushroom Festival is to buy a jar of the soup, take it home and eat it for dinner the next day.

Or, even better, freeze it and bring it out for lunch when the cold weather arrives.

As in the past, locally produced mushroom soup will be for sale at the upcoming festival, but this year there are some changes.

For the past 15 years, the soup was cooked, sold and dished out at the Kennett Square Masonic Lodge on West Cypress at Center Street. This year it will be provided at a booth uptown in the main State Street area at Broad Street where the culinary events, mushroom-eating contest and entertainment will happen near a red tent.

If you are perusing the festival and get hungry, you can purchase a jar and consume the contents sitting at the table and chairs provided at the booth.

Whether you buy it to eat right away or take home, it will be warm and packaged. Continued on Page 30

According to Mushroom Festival Coordinator Gayle Ferranto, the soup will be sold in to-go closed containers with a lid. It can be eaten at the festival or taken home. Another change this year is how the soup is produced. Previously, the Kennett Square Masons cooked and served that the soup – small or large servings. They dished it out on site and engaged their customers in conversations. It was a convivial event all around. This year, the soup will be prepared off-site at the Sunny Dell Foods plant in Oxford. Sunny Dell is a food manufacturer in Oxford offering a wide variety of specialty products. The company has grown over the years but advertises that it always holds onto its roots of making quality marinated mushrooms. Sara Caligiuri of Sunny Dell, who is overseeing this year’s mushroom soup operation for the festival described the product this way to Ferranto: Courtesy photo “[It is a] locally made saMushroom soup is commercially displayed by Sunny Dell Foods. vory, rich and creamy soup. It is loaded with fresh local portabella and white mushrooms. It has earthy flavor enhanced by carrots, herbs, onions and black pepper. The mushrooms are locally grown and the

Deputy Grand Master Eric Downs talked about the years of cooking the mushroom soup.

The Kennett Square Masons display a bowl of their soup at the 2019 Mushroom Festival.

Photos by Chris Barber

The Masons cook up the soup at the 2019 Mushroom Festival. From left are Anthony Higgins Jr., John Mastrippolito, Eric Downs and Bill Hitch.

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Mushroom soup

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soup contains milk from local dairy farms.

The Masons are still involved, however, in a lesser role. This year they will serve as the vendor and oversee the sales at the booth.

The tradition of selling homemade mushroom soup at the festival has a rich history that goes back about 15 years.

Masons’ District Deputy Grand Master Eric Downs, 48, described the anticipation and fellowship that accompanied the annual soup-production project in past years.

He said the original leader of the project was Al Marcus, who still participates but handed off the majority of the responsibility to Downs 10 years ago.

They got the needed 300 pounds of mushrooms from two local growers: Basicani and D’Amico.

Downs said they laid out the ingredients and equipment the Friday night preceding the festival and got up early on Saturday to do the cooking.

He said they steamed the mushrooms over a fire in batches of 10 pounds each, while cooking the onions, celery, butter, mustard and broth as well.

“The steaming kept them tender, and they smelled so good. When I would go home, my wife said, ‘You smell like onions.’” Downs said.

They dished the soup out for consumption at the hall, but the customers could also buy lidded bowls slipped in plastic

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Mushroom soup

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bags to take with them.

The customers could also pay in advance, and the Masons would store it in refrigeration with their names to pick up later.

They also sold juice and soda.

Downs said the recipe was not secret. In fact, they posted it on the wall so people with allergies would know if they had to exercise caution.

“It was a soup, but it was loaded with mushrooms. You could see them filling the bowl,” he said.

With the proceeds of sales, the Masons funded two $1,000 scholarships: one each for a graduating senior from Unionville and Kennett high schools.

This year, he said, the Mushroom Festival leadership is giving them $2,000 for the scholarships, inasmuch as they will not be receiving the profits for the soup.

Downs said it has always been a genial and festive event for the Masons – something they look forward to.

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Courtesy photo

Mushrooms are cut for soup at Sunny Dell Foods.

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He said they usually sold out on Sunday, especially in good weather.

“We even had a woman who would come every year, she was a food critic from Chicago. She loved it and loved the recipe,” Downs said.

The success of the mushroom soup project has inspired the Masons to consider future applications.

“The New Year’s Eve Mushroom Drop has all those people thinking about the mushrooms on a cold night,” he said.

Still, for this year, he said he and his members will miss the Mushroom Festival project.

“There was fun and laughter. We had a ball,” he said.

Mushrooms are cooked for soup at Sunny Dell Foods.

Courtesy photo