Wood Ear mushrooms(Auricularia auricula)

The mushrooms commonly known as Wood Ear or Cloud Ear mushrooms are actually two identical species of jelly fungi, Auricularia Polytricha and Auricularia auricula-judae, respectively. The main difference between the two species is size. The Asian fungus is also called Tree Ear, Black Fungus, and Judas' ear.

Wood Ear mushrooms received their common name from their odd shape, which is very similar to that of a human ear. Wood Ear mushrooms are brown to dark brown and can be anywhere from two to 8 inches in size. The gill less, mushrooms are somewhat cup-shaped, with a thick smooth, wavy cap and almost no stem. The color of the skin often takes on the color of the tree that it grows on. With age, the mushroom darkens and the skin can turn black. The texture of the Wood Ear mushroom is crisp and crunchy. Not big on flavor, the Wood Ear mushroom tends to take on the flavors of other ingredients in the dish.

Wood Ear mushrooms are said to have been cultivated around 600AD, meaning they were the first recorded cultivated mushroom. They are native to China, and also grow in the Pacific Islands and in humid areas around the world. Most major Asian countries cultivate Wood Ear mushrooms today. They grow in the wild on rotting and decaying wood. Wood Ear mushrooms can be found at most Asian markets.

Introduction

Wood ears or pepeiao (Auricularia polytricha) are the fruiting bodies of a fungus, native to Hawaii, that invades and lives in the wood of cut or fallen logs of several tree types. They resemble ears in shape and are gelatinous to leathery in texture and brownish-purplish in color. The mushroom is prized in Chinese cuisine and is commonly used to give texture to soups. They were known to the early Hawaiians and became an export product to the Chinese in China and San Francisco during the late 1800s (Anon. 1914). They were also exported from New Zealand during the same period (Stamets 1993). When dried, they shrivel to a much smaller size and may be shipped in that state and rehydrated for later use.

         

              🖵   The genus Auricularia contains a number of species and is classified in the order Auriculariales in the basidiomycete group of fungi (Alexopoulos et al. 1996). Auriculariales is the largest order of jelly fungi and the fruiting bodies or basidiocarps of many of the species are produced on wood. The brown, rubbery, earlike structures may reach 4 to 6 inches in diameter and are produced on dead stumps, logs, and branches of hardwood trees. Species of Auricularia are found worldwide and A.polytricha occurs in both tropical and subtropical regions (Cheng and Tu 1978). The fungi are spread by airborne spores produced on the basidiocarps. Spores that land on a suitable substrate germinate, penetrate the wood and produce microscopic hairlike mycelium that grows throughout the wood. It is only when the fungus sporulates that the basidiocarps or wood ears are produced on the log surface. 

• Wood ears have been collected in the wild for many centuries in China and it was the Chinese that first learned to cultivate them, at least as early as 300 BC (Cheng and Tu 1978). 

• The protein, vitamin, and carbohydrate content of wood ears are reported to be higher than that of many vegetables and fruits and the caloric content is relatively low (Cheng and Tu 1978), so they make a nutritious ingredient of soups or other dishes. For some reason, A. polytricha and other related edible species have never been a popular food in Europe. However, in Hawaii a ready market exists that could be supplied by commercial production in forest understory or by small farmers or backyard gardeners. The dried mushrooms need no further processing or refrigeration and could be sold to local markets, hotels, or restaurants.