Photo: Chong Fat, Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)
Paddy Straw Mushroom
Volvariella volvacea
Also known as Straw Mushroom, Chinese Mushroom, Grass Mushroom
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦The paddy straw mushroom has been cultivated in southern China since at least the 1700s, prized for growing quickly and abundantly on the rice straw left over after harvest. It became known outside Asia simply as the Chinese mushroom, and to this day it is one of the most widely grown mushrooms in the world, especially across China, Southeast Asia, and Madagascar. In the food-as-medicine traditions of southern Chinese kitchens, mushrooms like this one were folded into light, nourishing broths given to those recovering from illness or fatigue, valued as much for their gentle, restorative quality as for their taste. It remains a beloved ingredient in Cantonese and Southeast Asian cooking, especially in soups, stir-fries, and braises.
How to grow & use it
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“For a silky, mild mushroom that soaks up whatever simmering pot it is dropped into.”
Paddy straw mushrooms grow so fast that a single fruiting body can pass from a tiny closed egg to a fully opened cap in about 24 hours, one of the quickest growth cycles of any cultivated mushroom.
Never eat paddy straw mushroom raw or undercooked. In its unopened egg stage it can closely resemble deadly Amanita species like the death cap, so never harvest or eat a wild egg-stage mushroom without expert identification confirming the true gill and veil structure.