.

.
.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

ABC Wednesday - X box and Xylogenous Fungi




A lucky Michael gets a X box controller cake from his mum Grace. I wonder if he was willing to cut it.

http://abcwednesdayround3.blogspot.com/

xylogenous means growing on wood, so I take it that the Chinese Ear Fungi is xylogenous.

I went for a walk to a park next to Mt Albert Grammar school. I came across this tree stump which has some Chinese Ear Fungi growing. I have never been here, so I walked rather slowly and clicked as I went along.

This fungi is eaten by the Chinese and has a rubbery texture. You can buy them in dry form, soak it to reconstitute and it expands about 5 times its size. Not many people like it as it feels slimy and rubbery. I used to pick them when I was a child in Borneo.

I remember reading how this Chinese man made his fortune in New Zealand by shipping them to China. The Kiwis, Pakehas and Maoris laughed at this China man, but he had the last laugh. He laughed all the way to the bank.

So now, I will be keenly looking at tree stumps and hope to make my millions.

Wood ear fungus

The first commercial sale of edible fungi in New Zealand was in the 1870s, when Taranaki merchant Chew Chong sent bags of dried wood-ear fungus (Auricularia cornea) to his homeland, China. The fungus was in demand for the crunchy, chewy texture it added to food.

Wood ear fungus grows naturally on dead trees in lowland forest. Tonnes were harvested as settlers cleared forest for farming, and exports to China continued until the 1950s. In the 2000s, the fungus is now mostly imported to New Zealand from China, in dry form. Taiwanese growers had started cultivating a closely related fungus on sawdust blocks in the 1960s, and it became uneconomic to harvest it in the wild. A small quantity is now grown in New Zealand for the domestic market.

11 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

love the fungus - not a sentence i've ever written before...ROG, ABC Wednesday team

magiceye said...

that is a super take on the theme!
very informative
thank you

Tash said...

Such a fun X post!
Michael is super lucky & Grace is very talented. I would never have thought of the X-box which I've lived with for many years.
Fascinating about the mushrooms - wish you luck in making the millions. :)
PS - my (now former) boss was indeed a great boss. He is Chinese from Hong Kong and came to the US in his late teens to go to college. He worked as a waiter to put himself thru school, and is one of the best engineers I know.

Dani said...

very informative. thank you

Have a great Thursday!
Thank you for stopping by.

Ah Ngao said...

looks like Linzyi,the costly fungi.

Gattina said...

I think I wouldn't buy those funghis because the name is difficult to pronounce, lol !
BTW Mr. G. takes care of the cats as he prefers to stay home with them, when we travelled together it was my neighbor.

Rune Eide said...

We have something similar around here too. It is not poisonous, but very seldom eaten.

Anonymous said...

I like that x-box cake; very creative.

Tumblewords: said...

What a fun post - love the X box cake and the fungi is incredible!

Jama said...

That one cute cake!

Gayle said...

Any kid that received the X-box cake would be super eXcited, I'm sure! Interesting post about the fungus, too.