Episode 134: The Mushroom People with Christina and Morganna

“The Mushroom People.” Digital Art by Barbara Fisher 2023

I love mushrooms. I love cooking them, eating them, talking about them, reading about them, painting them, thinking about them and watching documentaries about them.

And so do Morganna and Christina, so we just had to record this episode.

There’s so much going on in this conversation. Weird ideas, art ideas, food ideas, alien ideas and so much speculation. And laughter.

Lots of laughter.

Essentially, the three of us hung out and had fun and recorded it.

First a link to the documentary we mentioned in this episode: Fantastic Fungi.

And secondly: I promised a recipe in the show notes for


Lion’s Mane Mushroom “Crab Cakes”

Lion’s Mane Mushroom “Crab Cakes.”

2 heaping cups of shredded fresh lion's mane mushroom (To shred, just pick it apart by hand--it comes apart easily if you just pinch and pull. Break each piece apart into about 1"X1/4" flake-like shreds. )
1 1/2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1/4 teaspoon sugar or raw sugar
1 squeeze lemon juice
2 tablespoons very finely diced sweet onion
2/3-3/4 cup panko crumbs
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
cayenne pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Olive oil for frying

OK--here we go.

Put the water in a nonstick small frying pan and heat over medium heat. Heat for 30 seconds, and then toss in the shreds of mushroom (don't cut it, shred by hand. You want it to be irregular shreds), and with a spatula, begin stirring the mushroom about. Keep it moving, and within moments it will begin sweating out water. It'll hiss and steam, and the opaque mushroom bits will begin to turn sort of translucent, and will wilt and shrink. It will take on color as well--it will go from stark white to creamy, with little golden edges. Keep going, keeping it moving until it has reduced in volume by a bit and it looks damp an really crab-like. This should take about two minutes at the most. Sprinkle with the first measure of Old Bay and the sugar and lemon juice, take off heat and stir well. Dump into a bowl, stir to cool until you can handle it. This also gets the sugar to melt into the mushroom and give it the crab-like sweetness that the mushroom itself lacks.

Now, add in all the other ingredients except the olive oil and mix gently with your hands. Do not squish, squash, squeeze or otherwise compact anything together. Just toss it gently and thoroughly. If you find it too hard not to squish or squeeze, then stir with a spoon--it's just faster with your hands.

Form into ice-cream scoop-sized balls gently--again, do not squish it--and then flatten slightly into cakes. At this point, you may need to add a little more panko or a little more mayo, depending on how much moisture you have in your mushroom shreds. You want it to just hold together.

Heat up your olive oil on medium heat and set the cakes gently into the heated oil, and fry gently. After about a minute, they should be golden on the first side, turn gently with a spatula or a fork---and only turn once. Lift up the side of one cake to check the color--if it looks a bit pale, just let it back down into the oil and let it cook about 20-30 more seconds. Then, turn and cook about 45 seconds to a minute on the other side--just until golden and crispy.

Serve with remoulade sauce. A quick way to make it is to take mayo, and add a dab of minced garlic, a dab of dijon mustard and a generous squirt of sriracha sauce, and a sprinkle of chopped fresh herbs of your choice. I like chives, chervil and tarragon in mine.

The method comes directly from Zak's Grandma who taught me how to make real crab cakes. She used cracker crumbs in hers that she crushed herself, but she said breadcrumbs worked too. But the most important thing, she said was to not compact or squash the mixture roughly when forming the cakes. They were best--light and flaky in the center and crispy on the outside when they had very little binder in them and were handled as gently as possible. She was Baltimore, so I reckon she knew what she was up to--her crab cakes were delicious.

“Appalachian Trinity” Mixed Media Painting Barbara Fisher, 2016