Deep in cow country near here, Jamie Ramsay is using the dark, moist reaches of an old dairy barn as a breeding ground for a gourmet delicacy.
Inside the barn, thousands of fleshy shiitake mushrooms sprout from organic blocks made of sawdust, wheat bran and millet while a humidifier slung from the ceiling spews steam into the cavernous room.
Shiitakes, long coveted by Asians as an especially fragrant fungi, are gaining acceptance by Americans as a hearty mushroom good for grilling, salads and sauces.
Ramsay’s Indian Farm Mushrooms is one of 20 commercial growers in Wisconsin in an industry that is springing up mainly in converted farm buildings.
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The 10-year-old Shiitake Growers Association of Wisconsin has more than 300 members, many of whom are hobbyists, says its president, John Cook. He says the growing industry is putting old barns back into use and supplementing the income of retirees and farmers.
“The demand is insatiable,” says Ramsay, a dairy farmer and mushroom grower who supplies shiitakes to Wisconsin grocers and gourmet restaurants.
Shiitakes sell for $10 and $12 a pound in stores, making them far more expensive than the finest steak.
“We can’t keep up,” Ramsay says, lamenting that he can’t go to the Madison Farmers’ Market every week because his supply of 500 pounds a week isn’t large enough to meet consumer demand.
The market for specialty fungi has exploded in recent years, expanding beyond the niche of gourmet cuisine, industry observers say.
United States growers produced more than 5.56 million pounds of specialty mushrooms during 1994, more than twice the previous year’s total, according to the Department of Agriculture.
Shiitake (pronounced shi-TAH-kee) is a Japanese word that means “mushrooms from the shii tree,” the oak tree on which Japanese farmers originally cultivated it.
United States farmers typically grow shiitakes on oak logs or, like Ramsay, on organic blocks inoculated with spores first grown in plastic bags that contain a sterilized mix of sawdust, wheat bran and millet.
Both methods require a controlled climate-77 degrees and 98 percent humidity-and sterilie conditions because shiitakes are highly susceptible to competing organisims.
After eight weeks of sitting on shelves in the dark, humid barn, the sawdust hardens into logs, which sprout the mushrooms.
“We have to grow them in a way that only the shiitake grows,” says Al Ellingboe, Ramsay’s business partner, and a UW-Madison plant pathologist and geneticist who breeds the shiitake strain.
“If any other organism is present it will overtake the mushroom,” he says.
The shiitake’s delicate beginnings belie the hearty, woodsy flavor that emerges when the mushrooms colonize, then sprout several months after inoculation.
Fresh shiitakes, which are rich in niacin and potassium, range in size from 2 to 7 inches in diameter. Some of the caps are so large they can be grilled as a vegetarian steak, Ramsay says. The stems are useful in soup stocks and sauces.
While California and Pennsylvania growers dominate the shiitake industry, the mushroom business fits into Wisconsin’s move toward agricultural diversity, says Cook of the Wisconsin growers group.
“We’ve got a lot of dairy farmers looking to supplement their income,” says Cook. “And we have a surplus of old farm equipment and buildings that can be converted for mushroom farming without a large investment.”
Four years ago Ramsay sought a way to boost his family’s income. He became intrigued with shiitakes after his sister and mother visited a mushroom farm in Hong Kong.