29/06/2025
Every summer we get requests for golden and pink oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus citrinopileatus and Pleurotus djamor.
While obviously striking and almost unbelievably beautiful, these are also two of the best, most savory oyster varieties when very fresh.
With a flavor that begins to degrade within 24 hours of harvest these are truly rare delicacies, or at least pinks as we'll soon discuss. Both of these mushrooms when seared until brown can elicit deep savory, bacon-like flavors. Truly two of my favorite mushrooms to eat by themselves or as meat substitutes. They're equally stunning to look at and add so much to our displays.
King oysters are similarly savory when prepared as such.
Pink oyster are so short-lived as to be nearly inedible within 4-5 days from harvest and not particularly good on day 3 either. Because of this, growing them is always a labor of love and a lesson in letting go because we can't always control when they fruit down to a specific day, which means harvesting at the wrong time of week sometimes means most of the crop will be going to the compost pile. But we will be bringing them back for a few weeks later this summer for those of you who have been waiting.
In 2015 I learned about the proclivity golden oysters have for escaping cultivation and becoming established in North America, specifically Iowa at first, and now across the Midwest and into the Southeast and Northeast states.
I quit growing them for a few years as to not contribute to their spread and displacement of our native species. In 2018 we moved our farm to a new location and found them growing on the property before we even grew any mushrooms there. I let capitalism get the best of me and figured our contribution to their spread is negligible, which simply isn't true when talking about something that once released will absolutely increase exponentially.
So we've been growing them seasonally for a few years but with every passing season more and more people report finding enormous flushes of these mushrooms to me.
Yesterday alone, at the Meridian Township Farmers' Market I had 3 people tell me they found golden oysters on their property for the first time this year. That should be absolutely shocking.
I had so far put off growing them this year, until a few weeks ago when we started a small number of cycles or crops, we picked our first of the year yesterday. But after much contemplation, I have decided we're going to run through our currently developing crops and then cease growing golden oysters commercially.
The pride I feel when we get compliments on their beauty can't compare to the shame I feel when knowing parties see that we're cultivating an invasive. A very polite elderly biologist confronted me about their invasive quality last year at the Meridian Farmers market and I've been thinking about her since we started growing them again this year.
But beyond that, I'm a hippy at heart. I value the trees more than any manmade structure or concept. Habitat loss and fragmentation is already decimating mushroom species. Emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease have massively reduced habitat for morels in my lifetime, for instance.
Golden oysters are easy to grow because they're incredibly aggressive and prolific. A single tree can produce hundreds of pounds in a year, whereas our native oysters and tree dwelling species produce a fraction of that, aside from Chicken of the Woods on occasion but it is already less common than the newly introduced goldens. And now that our business is established enough that I feel we will be successful long-term there is less incentive to compromise my integrity.
Sometimes when speaking about Oak wilt disease, present now in Michigan, I'm nearly moved to tears at the idea of losing our stands of glorious oaks, and all the mushrooms and animals they support.
Not to get too political, or economical perhaps, but I'm a reluctant capitalist, a businessman by force and necessity and I cannot let that turn me into that which I loathe the most, a person who values the almighty dollar over the almighty.
"No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty!"
- John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), page 208.
"Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed -- chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. ... It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods -- trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries ... God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools." - John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901
