Botanicula

The journey begins

I came over this unusual game by accident, and still wondering if I should get a full version of it. It is a point and click adventure in which a motley crew of mushrooms and insects are embarking on a journey to plant a seed. It has most adorable sounds and music (if you listen to the tiny squeaks those travelling fungi make, you are guaranteed to fall in love with them after five minutes), and graphics like I have never seen before. Beautiful. And weird (in a good sense).

As for the gameplay, the demo can be played in under a minute if you know what you are doing, but the great thing about this game is that there are so many objects and places you can explore that are not compulsory. The more you click, the more cute animations and adorable sounds you discover.

A full version of Botanicula costs $10, and if you enjoy leisurely meditative puzzles (although, who doesn't?), it is worth every penny.

Mushrooms in the sky...

Or rather, mushroom-shaped cities with the base on the surface of the ocean, with their "caps" rising to 700 metres above sea level. I can't seem to stop thinking about "Green floats" these days.

Shimizu's arcologies may not be practicable, but I love their imagination and ambition. Also, we really need to do something with all that rubbish floating in the ocean. Dealing with the issue by constructing humongous mushrooms is bizarre but also strangely appropriate. After all, fungi are great recyclers. In a video that I posted a while ago, Paul Stamets listed six ways in which fungi can save the world. This might just be the seventh.

Mushroom cities in the Pacific

Concept art for the floating city

I came across this article today, describing the sorry state of the Pacific ocean, which is gradually turning into a rubbish dump, and also a lifeless desert, due to extreme overfishing.

Why write about it in a mushroom blog? Because, according to the same article, fish and mushrooms are the only two wild foods that humans still consume regularly. There is literally nothing else! And, apparently, we are running out of fish, as well as ocean itself.

However, it pleases me that there are dreamers out there working to solve the garbage issue: Shimizu corporation who proposed a concept of a carbon-negative city, freely floating on equatorial ocean currents, recycling all those discarded plastics into building materials and energy.

These cities cannot yet be constructed with the current state of technology, but Shimizu's R&D people are very busy developing them. In 25 years, these will become a reality.

Come to think if it, the place seems to be a very nice retirement spot. And don't those towers look just like giant mushrooms?

Image credit:
Greenfloat city, Shimizu corporation

Soup with Judas' ears

There is a famous Russian cookbook by Yelena Molokhovets, published in 1861, entitled "A gift to young housewives, or the way to decrease expenses in running your household". Its recipes typically start like this: "Boil a whole chicken, keep the stock, and give the chicken away to your servants", or "If you husband has unexpectedly brought home guests, and there is absolutely nothing in the house, don't despair: go to the attic and get a leg of ham..."

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. This weekend I roasted a chicken with lots of herbs and spices, and it seemed to be such a shame just to throw the carcass away after the meat was picked clean off it, so I decided to make some chicken bone soup. Once the stock was strained and ready, I added some chicken meat, frozen sweetcorn and, of course mushrooms.

Just a handful of dried Auricularia auricula-judae.

Normally, when I cook new mushrooms, I tend to be cautious and use just a little bit, but these were pre-packed dried fungi, flown to me all the way from Singapore, so I thought, no need to be shy. I dropped in six, and closed the lid.

Five minutes later, I heard some strange noises coming from the kitchen. The fungi soaked up HALF of the liquid in the pot and were literally crawling out of the pot! (Thankfully, there was more than enough stock in it). The disaster was narrowly avoided only with a hasty transfer to a larger pot. They made for a great soup in the end: a bit leathery in texture, but that was in perfect contrast to sweetcorn and croutons, so the culinary experiment was definitely a success.

Fancy some leathery ears?

That wasn't the end of it though. Next day, I decided to take the remaining fungi out of the soup and give them the standard treatment of frying in butter, because everything tastes better that way, right? Right... Even though I sliced them into thin strips, the explosion in my kitchen was still quite spectacular. Note to self: Judas' ears - soups ONLY. NO frying!

Behind the scenes at Kew Gardens

The short video below gives a behind-the-scenes view of Kew fungarium. It is the largest collection of dried fungi in the world, with 1.25 million samples. As you can see, I am still not over the impression that the current events at Kew Gardens have made on me. Finally, there is an institution that not only recognises the importance of fungi, but also makes a serious attempt to promote this idea to the general public!

It particularly pleases me that their mushroom-oriented programme of events is running over the school holidays and is directed at children. The present attitude to fungi in Britain, which can be summarised as "Stay away from those hideous things!" upsets me greatly, even though it means that I have zero competition while foraging. I'm glad that there are efforts in place to change this. Although, perhaps they shouldn't have named one of their kid-friendly workshops "Hands-on with magical mushrooms"...