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Salem

The Mushroom Shop offers fungi for every season

October 19, 2021 By marketeditor

By Emily Meagher

Jacob Howard of The Mushroom Shop at the market, photo by Emily Meagher

Saratoga’s Wednesday farmers’ market, which concludes its 2021 season at the end of October, is a gem for finding less conventional varieties of fresh, local produce. This season, a crowd favorite has been the diverse offering of seasonal mushrooms by The Mushroom Shop, a new vendor.

Partners Jacob Howard and Elise Olsen have always enjoyed gardening, growing vegetables and flowers, and keeping houseplants. About six years ago, they decided to try growing something new, one of their favorite ingredients to cook with: mushrooms. That hobby turned more serious this past winter when a local farmer offered a part of their land in Salem to build a proper mushroom farm. Thus The Mushroom Shop began.

Elise Olsen tending to the mushroom crops, photo provided

The past year has been full of learning curves for the young farmers. Through the seasons, weather affects how mushrooms grow – even in a controlled environment. To provide fresh, quality products, they don’t sell mushrooms cut more than three days before markets, so preparing the crop for harvest close to market days can be challenging.

The unpredictability of the crop also makes for happy surprises. This summer, Howard and Olsen changed the recipe for the medium they use to grow their fungi. The lion’s mane variety took very well to this change – just 4 of the mushrooms weighed over 15 pounds!

An abundance of lion’s mane wasn’t a problem for the couple since it’s their favorite variety to cook.

“It’s so versatile. Its tender, meaty texture makes for a great seafood substitute, perfect for recipes like lion’s mane “crab” cakes, “shrimp” scampi, or hearty chowder. Or cook it like steak by searing thick slabs in a cast-iron skillet or on the grill,” says Howard.

Mushroom offering at the market, photo by Emily Meagher

The Mushroom Shop offers a variety of seasonal mushrooms, both farm-grown and foraged during the couple’s woods walks in Salem. Their products also include dried mushrooms, mushroom seasonings, and grow kits.

This November, The Mushroom Shop will join the Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s winter season at the Wilton Mall with 50 other local vendors. Howard and Olsen look forward to sharing their enthusiasm for all things fungi with market customers, who can expect to see several new cold-weather varieties at their stand this winter, like enoki, beech, black pearl oysters, king trumpets, and nameko.

This week’s recipe: Lion’s Mane Scampi

Filed Under: Featured Article, homepage feature, News Tagged With: farming, foraging, fungi, grow kits, lions mane, mushrooms, new vendor, Salem, seasonings, summer 2021, The Mushroom Shop, winter 2021/22

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A wonderful sunny market day! We have plenty of p A wonderful sunny market day!

We have plenty of produce in season, with tomatoes being the star of the show 🍅✨ With dozens of different varieties from our vendors, you’ll find plenty to make shakshuka (recipe on our website from last week!), sandwiches, soups, and more 🙂 

Corn and zucchini are also in season, perfect for a summer salad 🌽🥗

We hope to see you at High Rock Park today from 9-1!
It’s National Farmers’ market week! Stop by an It’s National Farmers’ market week! Stop by and celebrate with us tomorrow from 9-1 at High Rock Park! We will be joined by Saratoga’s Office for the Aging, CDPHP Comfort Food Community, Bicycle Benefits, the Academy for Life Long Learning and CCE Master Gardener! Tomorrows musicians are the Acorns and Running the River 🎉 Hope to see you there!

#saratogafarmersmarket #shopsmall #farmtotable #summer #agriculture #tomatoes #sweetcorn #saratogasprings #farmersmarket
Join us for POP Kids’ Club week 6! 4-H Robotics Join us for POP Kids’ Club week 6!

4-H Robotics Group will be bringing plenty of robots for kids to watch, play with, and even operate 🤖 Along with a larger robot that can be driven around!

We’ll also have supplies out for kids to construct their own designs with some produce and toothpicks 🍎🥦🛠

We hope to see you at High Rock Park tomorrow, Wednesday 8/3, any time between 3-6pm!
🫐🫐🫐 There are so many great vendors and p 🫐🫐🫐
There are so many great vendors and products here today for our Blueberry Festival!

We have…
Blueberry Lime jam from Kokinda Farm
Blueberry Lavender Lemonade from Slate Valley Farm
Blueberry hand pies from Nightwork Bread
Blueberry “woofles” from Mugsy’s Barkery
Adirondack Jill PB (with blueberries!) from Saratoga Peanut Butter Co.
Blueberry stickers
Fun crafts
And more!

We hope to see you today at High Rock, we’ll be here until 1! ☀️

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