''Volvariella volvacea'' (also known as paddy straw mushroom or straw mushroom) is a species of
edible mushroom
Edible mushrooms are the fleshy and edible fruit bodies of several species of macrofungi (fungi which bear fruiting structures that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye). They can appear either below ground (hypogeous) or above ground ...
cultivated throughout
East and
Southeast Asia and used extensively in Asian cuisines. They are often available fresh in regions they are cultivated, but elsewhere are more frequently found canned or dried. Worldwide, straw mushrooms are the third most consumed mushroom.
Cultivation
Straw mushrooms are grown on rice straw beds and are most commonly picked when immature (often labeled "unpeeled"), during their button or egg phase and before the veil ruptures. They are adaptable and take four to five days to mature, and are most successfully grown in subtropical climates with high annual rainfall. No record has been found of their cultivation before the 19th century.
Nutrition
One cup of straw mushrooms is nutritionally dense and provides of
food energy, 27.7 µg selenium (50.36% of
RDA RDA may refer to:
Organisations
* Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (African Democratic Rally), a political party formed in 1946 in French West Africa.
* Rawalpindi Development Authority, Pakistan.
* Reader's Digest Association, a magazine publ ...
), 699 mg sodium (46.60%), 2.6 mg iron (32.50%), 0.242 mg copper (26.89%), 69 µg vitamin B
9 (Folate) (17.25%), 111 mg phosphorus (15.86%), 0.75 mg vitamin B
5 (pantothenic acid) (15.00%), 6.97 g protein (13.94%), 4.5 g total dietary fiber (11.84%), and 1.22 mg zinc (11.09%).
Identification
In their button stage, straw mushrooms resemble poisonous
death cap
''Amanita phalloides'' (), commonly known as the death cap, is a deadly poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus ''Amanita''. Widely distributed across Europe, but now sprouting in other parts of the world, ''A. phalloides ...
s, but can be distinguished by several mycological features, including their pink
spore print (spore prints of death caps are white). The two mushrooms have different distributions, with the death cap generally not found where the straw mushroom grows natively, but immigrants, particularly those from Southeast Asia to California and Australia, have been poisoned due to misidentification.
References
External links
Straw Mushroom* http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/SynSpecies.asp?RecordID=307802
* http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NamesRecord.asp?RecordID=307802
Pluteaceae
Chinese edible mushrooms
Fungi described in 1786
Fungi in cultivation
Fungi of Asia
{{Agaricales-stub