Smoked mushroom garum?

Am I interested in trying this one? Yes, of course. It’s a garum after all and one made using koji, not the kinda canonical fish guts. Interested enough to pay the £18 they’re extorting plus whatever horrendous shipping charges the courier will impose plus a 20% UK import tax  — thanks to Brexit, the ‘gift’ that keeps on g̶i̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ fucking us over — when it ships in March? Not so much, no…

So, I guess I’m going to have to experiment myself.

This photo below — of part of the process — isn’t me experimenting of course. He’s hairier than me. Younger as well. So I’m guessing it’s either Noma’s Thomas Frebel or, more likely, Kevin Jeung. Pretty damn sure it’s not Nadine Levy Redzepi however…

Rice koji, some crushed mushrooms, salt. Left for 8 weeks, then cold smoked. How hard can it be? I do after all have these fine guides to point me in the right direction (& possibly save me from the grosser mis-steps I hope)…

And a mushroom one won’t be as, er, “aromatic” as the squid based item that I wanted to make, which project was oh, sooooo swiftly vetoed by Val. No matter how hard how I tried to explain that this would, eventually lead to a substance smelling…

like a pleasantly sticky marriage of the earth and the sea

…the go-ahead never, never appeared. And you know, I’m slow but I’m not that slow. So, I cancelled that idea. But if you want to try it, Val won’t stop you…

Here’s a typically gushing write up from the Daily Torygraph. Stolen, because I fucking hate these fuckers:

[pdf-embedder url=”https://salutethepig.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/The-inside-story-of-the-worlds-most-exclusive-ingredient-1.pdf” title=”The inside story of the world’s most exclusive ingredient”]