In what was probably the most similar experience in Ottawa to my little gourmet trip across Canada, me, my chef and another cook from Domus went to Le Coprin mushroom farm. Affectionately known as Kristoph's mushrooms, Le Coprin is a company now based from just outside Wakefield, and is run by a remarkably young couple who grow a variety of mushrooms for restaurant usage only. They do sell to a few wholesalers, but by far the majority of their shroomage goes to us cooks, and trust me, we appreciate that.
The business is something I knew honestly nothing about. I was expecting something in between a clinical laboratory and a barn smeared with manure. I got neither. The operation is like you might expect if you knew anything about the techniques to cultivate mushrooms. Upon entering their small airplane hangar, I was struck by the lack of smell. I had just assumed that large amounts of manures were totally necessary. Apparently I was wrong. Kristoph's operation is a much less smelly affair, and for a family business, quite professional. The basic layout is a lab and inoculation room in the front left, across from which is the feed compiler and mixer where they mix sawdust, lime, cereals and a couple other ingredients to get those shrooms happily popping up. After they've compiled the feed, it gets steamed in a massive sealed shipping container so all the bacteria in it is mercilessly pressure cooked to a tiny bacteria hell. Thus adding more nutrient in the form of corpse, on which we all know fungus happily grows. Or those of us versed in these things know. Awkward.
After steaming, the bricks of feed get inoculated with mushroom. This extract is grown elsewhere in petri dishes, and stored in liquid before being popped in a pressurized gun and being proverbially blasted into the clods of feed.
After their blasting session, the clods are left in one of two growing rooms, both held at different temperatures so that the mycelium in the mushrooms can mature. Different varieties of mush need different temperatures to bloom, hence the two rooms. These rooms are really cool to walk into. They are basically just lined with bags sprouting massive amounts of mushrooms into the air. The bags are slit or poked to encourage growth in a certain location for ease of picking. Its great fun to see how the mushrooms obviously displease being told where to grow, and start wandering or making their own air pockets. In any case, the walls are lined with shrooms of all walks of life, and it's a really majestic kinda thing to see something so microclimactic thriving in such a way.
Beyond the two containers for growth, there is also a fourty foot walk in fridge for the enjoyment of all, people and mushrooms as well. The nicest surprises there were some oregon white truffles kristoph had brought in on special order. Out of control.
All in all, a madly fun experience and great to see one of the operations whose products I work with every single day. Thanks to Kristoph and the crew at Le Coprin for being so welcoming.
On a side note, we got lost and drove for almost three hours all over Quebec before finally getting to the farm. Lesson to be learned: don't trust google maps for obscure adresses.
