A Magical Mushroom -- There's Lots To Be Done With Matsutakes - If You Can Find Them

SOME EDIBLES ARE BOUND to the change of seasons, and none more so than the matsutake, or pine mushroom. The elusive delicacy appears when the days begin to shorten and rains soak the forest floor.

"It's the flavor everybody wants," explains Pat Kawahara, a trim, talkative matsutake maven who works as produce manager of the Rainier Valley QFC when he is not out beating the hinterlands for mushrooms. "It's unique."

Matsutakes are a wild mushroom enjoyed for their woodsy perfume and taste. The aroma is as distinctive as, say, cilantro. The shape of the mushroom depends on the age - the youngest are like unopened umbrellas, while mature mushrooms have lightly rounded caps and old mushrooms can be slightly cupped.

Matsutakes have long been celebrated in Japan, not only at the table but in poetry and art, and are increasingly popular in America. Though traditional in soups and with rice, the flavor and meaty texture makes them wonderful with almost any savory dish, or grilled and eaten as a solo pleasure.

As a child, Kawahara went with his parents and grandparents into the Cascades on matsutake hunts. He remembers fragrant trees and moisture-laden air, picnic lunches, and the return home with a bagful of mushrooms to be shared with uncles and aunts.

Today the 35-year-old picks every week during the fall season, and visits his special locations during the summer to stay familiar with the terrain. In his dedication Kawahara carries on a tradition as fragile and tenacious as the matsutake mycelium itself. If he finds matsutakes, well and good. If not, there's always deer and rabbits and trees to enjoy, and froggies for his daughter. But often enough Kawahara finds matsutakes, and becomes the candy man to a network of friends and family.

"I have rounds of old people I give them to," he says with a smile. "They can't wait for that first bite."

Nowadays many others have joined Japanese Americans like Kawahara in the forest, including many commercial pickers attracted by the high prices the matsutake commands. This year, supplies were scarce and retail prices spiked to over $80 a pound.

Much of the harvested product is exported to Japan, where this king of mushrooms is enjoyed as an autumn delicacy and excuse for a social occasion. Japanese restaurants celebrate the matsutake season by preparing an aromatic soup. It is served in a diminutive teapot, with the thin broth poured into tiny, wide-brimmed cups as delicate as robins' eggs.

Teapot soup by tradition demands the young, unopened matsutake button, called a tsubomi, which is the highest and most expensive grade of matsutake. It is especially hard to find, betrayed by no more than a slight lift or crack in the forest floor.

While soup in a teapot is the traditional preparation, matsutakes need not be treated with undue reverence. Soups can follow most mushroom-soup recipes. They can be sauteed and served with broth, either a Japanese-style stock called dashi made with bonito shavings, or a Western-style chicken or vegetable stock, perhaps delicately enriched with some cream. Kawahara likes to saute them with lots of butter and eat them over rice with a little soy sauce.

Fresh matsutakes are generally available from early fall through December. They are gathered in forests from California to British Columbia in roughly two seasons - an early highland season and later lowland or coastal season.

Matsutakes also can be found frozen or dried, though they're not as flavorful.

Matsutakes typically are found around pine trees, though the mushroom mycelium grows symbiotically with the roots of other trees as well, including firs. Novices would do well to join a mushroom club or team up with an experienced hunter. It takes a canny and attentive eye to spot matsutakes, and hours of searching might yield only a few mushrooms. There are also some look-alikes to be avoided.

Matsutakes are sensitive; humidity, soil and depth of litter on the forest floor are just some of the conditions determining whether mushrooms emerge from the underground mycelium. If all is well, the matsutakes pop up, as if by magic, about two weeks after the dark-orange chanterelle mushrooms light up the woods. Last year there was a bumper crop - matsutakes for friends and family and plenty for the wholesaler. Kawahara even found one 6-pound monster.

But this year has been lean. The rains came late and by the time they'd sufficiently drenched the forest floor, the freezing level had dropped. Kawahara scoured all his best places, in the Cascades and around Mount Rainier, as well as lowland areas around Port Townsend and Shelton, but results were poor.

When he does locate a matsutake, Kawahara proceeds slowly. He wiggles his index fingers on either side of it, till he finds the bottom of the stem. Then he gently wiggles the mushroom out. It is a delicate procedure that leaves the bed intact for future harvests. He also scrapes the mold that's on the bottom of the stem back into the hole.

"I don't know if it does anything," he laughs, "but that's the way my grandmother taught me."

David A. Berger is a Seattle writer. Steve Ringman is a Seattle Times staff photographer.

Matsutake Dobin Mushi (Matsutake Teapot Soup) Serves 4

2 quarts of water 1 piece (about 4 inches square) dried kelp (dashi konbu) 1-cup dried-bonito flake 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons light (thin) soy sauce (usukuchi) 5 ounces matsutake mushrooms 4 ounces white fish (red snapper or sea bass) 8 sprigs watercress 8 gingko nuts, canned (optional)

1. To make the dashi stock, soak kelp in water overnight. 2. Heat water. Just before it simmers, remove kelp. Bring water to full boil, add the bonito flake and immediately remove from heat. 3. Wait 10 minutes, then strain with fine strainer or cheesecloth. Add salt and soy sauce. 4. Wipe mushrooms clean of all dirt with dry towel. Remove stem bottoms and slice mushrooms thinly. 5. Slice fish into 4 pieces. 6. Heat dashi soup to simmer. Add fish, mushrooms, watercress and nuts and remove from heat. Cover and let sit 12 to 15 minutes. 7. Serve in suitable small cups or bowls. Or place soup in a teapot (or two), and pour broth into small bowls at the table. Add some of each solid ingredient to each bowl. If small portions are served, soup can also serve eight.

Note: Instant dashi stock is available. Chicken stock simmered with several pieces of fresh ginger may be substituted.

Adapted from Nishino restaurant, Seattle