Why am I passionate about this?

My first favorite food was a mushroom and as a budding young chef, my first dish, made at 6, was a terrible take on mushrooms on toast points made with Wonder Bread, margarine, and a sad can of mushrooms. My father pretended to eat it. For his sake, I’m glad he didn’t. Things have improved for me since then and I turned my passion for mushrooms into a lifelong love of cooking them which led to my book Shroom, a cookbook for both mushroom lovers and avowed fungiphobes. Mushrooms have distinct culinary personalities and the diversity in edible mushrooms is as vast as that between a salinic, ocean-kissed oyster and a smoky, meaty grilled ribeye. 


I wrote

Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms

By Becky Selengut,

Book cover of Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms

What is my book about?

In a voice that's informed, but friendly and down-to-earth, Chef Becky Selengut's Shroom is a book for anyone looking to…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms

Becky Selengut Why did I love this book?

For starters, what’s not to like with a poetic title and a quirky, nerdy, tux-beclad mushroom expert on the front holding a trumpet (the horn, not the mushroom) and a mushroom haul? David Aurora is the mushroom god’s mushroom god and has cheerfully guided thousands if not millions of fungiphiles on their forest quests in search of both edible and nonedible mushrooms. His larger book Mushrooms Demystified is truly the bible, but this smaller Western guide which easily fits in a back pocket is the one I’ve carried with me for years. It’s where I cut my teeth when I first ventured out as a new forager, but it’s continued to guide me as I learn new mushrooms to add to my basket. Color photos, key features, notes on where to find the mushroom, and notes on edibility are listed for each type of mushroom in the book such as: Chanterelles, Amanita, Agaricus, and Morels (plus many more). A handy key is located on the jacket flaps and plenty of his humor and vivid storytelling dot the pages like the white spots on a fly agaric. 

By David Arora,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All That the Rain Promises and More as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“[All That the Rain Promises and More] is certainly the best guide to fungi, and may in fact be a long lasting masterpiece in guide writing for all subjects.”—Roger McKnight, The New York Times

Mushrooms appeal to all kinds of people—and so will this handy pocket guide, which includes key information for more than 200 Western mushrooms

Over 200 edible and poisonous mushrooms are depicted with simple checklists of their identifying features, as David Arora celebrates the fun in fungi with the same engaging bend of wit and wisdom, fact and fancy, that has made his comprehensive guide, Mushrooms Demystified,…


Book cover of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Becky Selengut Why did I love this book?

Entangled Life reads less like a natural history book and more like an ode to fungi by an astonished, bedazzled lover. For mushroom nerds like myself, known to wax poetic at the dinner table about how mushrooms have more in common genetically with animals than plants, I immediately felt that I had made a new friend while lost in the pages of his book. Dr. Sheldrake, a young scientist from Cambridge, travels the globe to stroke, sniff, taste, and gaze at the mind-blowing diversity of mushrooms, fungi, slime molds, and yeasts. Moving beyond intoxicating truffles and tripping psychedelics, Sheldrake introduces us to a fungus larger than some towns, a maze-navigating slime mold, and a mycelium network that inspired a Star Trek series. Brilliant in their adaptations, parasitism, and symbiosis, fungi may well be the meaning of life on Earth, or at least that is how it feels while reading this engaging book.

By Merlin Sheldrake,

Why should I read it?

21 authors picked Entangled Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems.

“Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday

When we think…


Book cover of The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America

Becky Selengut Why did I love this book?

Full disclosure, the author Langdon Cook is a friend of mine based out of Seattle where I live and we’ve foraged together, taught classes together, and made a spectacularly crappy batch of blackberry wine together but that’s not why I’m recommending his excellent book The Mushroom Hunters. Langdon takes the reader on a rollicking ride to places we didn’t at first think we wanted to go and then leaves us wanting more when he moves on. He skillfully teases apart the myths versus facts behind historical turf wars and gun violence in matsutake patches in one chapter and shadows Doug, a self-described redneck, throughout the book as he traverses the changing demographics of pickers and buyers, now firmly in the hands of many in the Southeast Asian community. The characters that frame his book, the pickers, buyers, and chefs that occupy the universe of wild and foraged foods are unforgettable personalities and he doesn’t neglect to document another key character in writing about mushrooms and that is the landscape of forest, orchard, and restaurant that enables the work of the mushroom hunters to exist. 

By Langdon Cook,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mushroom Hunters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A beautifully written portrait of the people who collect and distribute wild mushrooms . . . food and nature writing at its finest.”—Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia
 
“A rollicking narrative . . . Cook [delivers] vivid and cinematic scenes on every page.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
In the dark corners of America’s forests grow culinary treasures. Chefs pay top dollar to showcase these elusive and beguiling ingredients on their menus. Whether dressing up a filet mignon with smoky morels or shaving luxurious white truffles over pasta, the most elegant restaurants across the country now feature one of nature’s last truly wild…


Book cover of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

Becky Selengut Why did I love this book?

I had the opportunity to hear Paul Stamets speak at SOMA, a sleep-away camp for mushroom nerds in Northern California. Believe me when I say, it was as if the Beatles had descended when he stepped onstage. Short of screaming and the tearing off of t-shirts, the crowd hung on his every word, not a soul blinking or talking for fear of missing something. The word “visionary” is often used to describe Stamets, and I would add “architect”, for he maps out for the world in Mycelium Running how mushrooms can help save our planet. I used to think he wielded his immense knowledge of the environmental powers of mushrooms like a hammer always seeing a nail, but with time I’ve learned that people are considered visionaries when the majority of people aren’t listening to the truth even when it’s put right in front of them. Paul Stamets 1: World 0.

By Paul Stamets,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mycelium Running as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Mycelium Running is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how.
 
The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”--the fruit of which are mushrooms--recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and…


Book cover of A Cook's Initiation into the Gorgeous World of Mushrooms

Becky Selengut Why did I love this book?

Sometimes you just need a coffee table sort of book and though it is paperback, Frédéric Raevens photography in this book is worth the purchase alone. When I’m buying cookbooks I make sure to buy cookbooks written by chefs from other countries as it offers a lovely diversity of ingredients, techniques, and approaches. Emanuelli lives in Brussels and I found their perspective refreshing. The first fifth of the book is full-page mushroom porn in the best possible way. You could stop right there, but there’s so much more; recipes such as Glazed pork belly with truffled honey and Caramelized Belgian endive with black trumpet mushrooms, and Porcini and Chestnut soup. When I decided to write a mushroom cookbook, I was so pleased that my book stayed away from many of the others on the market by simply adding butter and cream to every recipe and calling it good. And then I found this book. The more the merrier I say! And so I befriended my mushroom cookbook nemesis and now call it my dear, old friend.

By Philippe Emanuelli, Frédéric Raevens (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Cook's Initiation into the Gorgeous World of Mushrooms as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This French buy-in is an extremely beautiful guide to buying and cooking mushrooms. More an evocative pleasure-read for mushroom lovers than a straight-up reference book for serious foragers, this book contains more than 120 uniquely French stream-of-consciousness recipes and colour photographs on every spread, with more than 200 photographs throughout.


Explore my book 😀

Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms

By Becky Selengut,

Book cover of Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms

What is my book about?

In a voice that's informed, but friendly and down-to-earth, Chef Becky Selengut's Shroom is a book for anyone looking to add mushrooms to their diet, find new ways to use mushrooms as part of a diet trending towards less meat, or diversify their repertoire with mushroom-accented recipes inspired from Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese cuisines, among others. Recipes include Maitake Tikka Masala, King Trumpet and Tomato Sandwiches with Spicy Mayo, and Hedgehog Mushrooms and Cheddar Grits with Fried eggs and Tabasco Honey. Written in a humorous voice, Becky Selengut guides the home cook through 15 species-specific chapters on mushroom cookery with the same levity and expertise she brought to the topic of sustainable seafood in her IACP-nominated 2011 book Good Fish

Book cover of All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms
Book cover of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Book cover of The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America

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Book cover of An Italian Feast: The Celebrated Provincial Cuisines of Italy from Como to Palermo

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Philosopher Historian Researcher Gastronomer Bibliophile and reviewer

Clifford's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.

An Italian Feast is a gastronomy about Italian culinary history and consciousness, about how Italians cook, eat, and how their food is an intimate part of their culture. It is the first book in any language to comprehensively explore the gastronomy and cuisine not just of Italy, and not just the regions of Italy,…

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Interested in fungus, mushrooms, and the American West?

Fungus 27 books
Mushrooms 17 books
The American West 139 books