Mushrooms do spoil, but before that will exude a lot of their water. What you saw was the water leeching out of them. They were probably still good and looked sliced white button mushrooms. They are a fungus, so they don't go any 'badder' than they already are, they just seem to break down and lose their water/juices. Fresh, they wouldn't be appealing, but sauted or cooked, they would be fine. That was probably the result of about a week of sitting in the store.

From The Oregonian's Food Day:
Look for dry, not slimy, mushrooms. They should be firm and smell clean,
never moldy. At home, keep them in the refrigerator in a brown paper bag.
Never keep them in a plastic bag, because they will turn into a slimy,
smelly mess. Unless they're dried, use them as soon as possible. Don't wash
mushrooms until you're ready to use them.

I think it is due to the fact they were in plastic. The safe storage shelf life is only 3-4 days. You were right in tossing them !

This is a bit embarassing to say, but I think if you looked in my crisper tray right now, you could find a partial package of mushrooms which were forgotten and have gone way past their prime. Just plain spoiled. Yes, mushrooms can decay. Sliminess is the first stage of decay.

I've done a bit of foraging for wild mushrooms. (Must add at this point that eating wild mushrooms is a life or death business. You must be able to make a positive identification, not just a pretty good guess.) There are two banes of the mushroom hunter. One is that many are damaged by slugs or insects, so unusable. The second is that they can quickly decay.

For eating, mushrooms should be dry, crisp and attractive. BTW, the nutritional value of mushrooms is zilch. They are only good for aesthetic reasons. So, there is absolutely no reason to eat an unpleasing one.

Jim

>> They are only good for aesthetic reasons.

And occasionally they taste good too. When I first bought this house new it was smack dab in what we call here "a greenway". Had to fell many trees in backyard just to grub out space for a container garden. Nice creek about 50 feet to my west that I could follow and find nice bunches of morels when in season. Although creeks are public property in Missouri the banks are not and I didn't like going on someone else's property. So I inoculated surrounding areas within say 100 feet of my house with morel spawn. Great success! Then I discovered that my house was the 1st of many homes to be built in this once secluded cul-de-sac subdivision. Goodbye mushrooms.. all the good areas are now on someone else's property.

I like to run a thin row of sautéed in butter 'shrooms down my burritos. Dried quite a few last year, but just couldn't get a handle on using them because of strong taste. Guess will try again.

I wouldn't hesitate to toss them! Mushrooms should never be put into plastic, and shops should provide paper bags to put them in - mushrooms sweat. They will keep only for a few days in the fridge, but they'll rot much faster in plastic, and I for one would never have purchased them packaged that way. It's asking for trouble - or at least you've got a better chance of wasting your money!

They may not actually poison you, but they'll taste about as good as they look. They are, after all, in a fairly advanced state of decay. And they won't have any food value to speak of in such a state.

Feed the compost bin!

Mushrooms should never be washed, just wiped off with a clean cloth.

Why is that? I always soak and/or wash my mushrooms to make sure they are clean. I remember Alton Brown disproving the old "They absorb water" myth several years back. He weighed several batches of mushrooms and let them soak for different lengths of time. After draining, they all weighed very similar to their starting weight.

Malon, I saw that same show recently, and have washed my mushrooms ever since. Alton wouldn't lie to me, now, would he? As for wild mushrooms, we always soaked morels in salt water overnight to get rid of any little residents hiding in the crevices.

As for packaging, I find it hard to find mushrooms packaged any other way, they all come in those stupid plastic boxes with plastic wrap. I promptly remove them when I get home and put them into a bowl that I bought who-knows-where with holes in the lid so it isn't airtight. That works very well and the mushrooms will stay good for a week or so, then they start to dry out.

Annie

It was thought that mushrooms would absorb water if they were washed. A recent TV show had soaked a batch of previously weighed mushrooms in water for several hours and weighed them again. There was no change in their weight, so they didn't absorb any water, as it was originally thought. Washing will not harm them, and will also help to remove any of the soil medium that clings to them, especially around the stems. Even if slimy, they can still be cooked. A mushroom takes a lot to go bad, and its not slime alone that will spoil them, its the collapes of their cells and the slime combination that makes them taste a bit off. if cooked. I have cooked, and sauteed mushrooms and some have been slightly slimy, but not as bad as in your photo. Its kind of like what happens to very old lettuce greens when they wilt and go mushy. Not appealing in appearance.

Ken - yes it was the Alton Brown show "Good Eats" that Annie and I were referring to. And if you ever invite me to dinner, I think I'll pass on the mushrooms. Slimy just ain't OK to me.

"Even if slimy, they can still be cooked. A mushroom takes a lot to go bad, and its not slime alone that will spoil them..."

IMO, it doesn't take much for a mushroom to go bad, no more than any other vegetable. They are subject to bacterial spoilage and mold just like any other vegetable. A slimey coating and sunken spots are massive populations of bacteria, in other words, rot. Yes, fungi can rot and mold.

Jim

Just had to dispute Jim's assertion that the nutritional value of mushrooms is zilch. One cup of cooked mushrooms has 3 grams of fiber and protein, 10% of your RDA of vitamin C and 15% of the RDA of Calcium.

According to www.nutritiondata.com:
"This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Protein, Thiamin, Vitamin B6, Folate and Magnesium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Iron, Phosphorus, Potassium, Zinc, Copper, Manganese and Selenium."

Not bad for 44 calories a cup!

Leigh

Thanks for the info Liegh, I always knew they were good for you, my mother used to say "they are nothing" but I loved them anyway! I don't eat wild ones. but use "store-fetched" whenever I can. Shammie

A cup of cooked mushrooms is several portions, I would think. A quarter cup would nicely garnish a steak don't you think? Saturday, a 10 oz. package served 4 of us (frankly, I would have liked more, but nobody complained). So those RDA figures would have to be reduced in order to represent a single portion. Three grams of fiber and protein (which also would have to be reduced to portion size) likewise is really nothing compared to 227 grams (8 oz.) of steak. If you prefer to compare to vegetables, beans, corn and rice provide some good numbers.

I would be perfectly happy if you blew my statement out of the water, because I like mushrooms, both "store-fetched" and wild. But I think they don't provide any significant nutrition, just pleasure of eating.

Jim

Well, around my house, a cup of mushrooms would be about a serving size, LOL.

I wouldn't compare them to a steak (unless we're talking a couple of grilled portobellos), but they compare favorably to other vegetables, I think--especially for the amount of calories.

Since they're often used as a garnish, I think they'd stand up well nutritionally to comparisons of, say, cheese, or herb butter.

Okay, Jim, now I'm hungry for a grilled steak with mushrooms AND herb butter. And it's only 7:30 in the morning!

Leigh

Are we talking about a cup of mushrooms before or after cooking? I'm assuming before. Once you cook those down, it would take at least a half cup (uncooked) to make a serving for us.

"Well, around my house, a cup of mushrooms would be about a serving size, LOL."

Can I come to your house?

"Okay, Jim, now I'm hungry for a grilled steak with mushrooms AND herb butter. And it's only 7:30 in the morning!"

I could come for breakfast.

Jim

After trying different types of griller's at last i found a great griller.Its all

credit goes to [url]http://www.homegrilling.com/[/url] Using griller's such as the George

Foreman Grill added a wonderful smell and taste to the foods we enjoy.Iam using many styles

of griller's depending whether it may indoor grilling or of course outdoor barbecuing.If u

are willing to have a tasteful dinners u can use my advice and have nice taste.
good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: home grilling

I bought my first mushroom kit last year, and I am sold on fresh mushrooms. Yes, I'm probably paying way too much per pound of mushrooms, but there's nothing better than food that's mere minutes old. I just ordered another mushroom kit today.

Although I think it got lost in the move, I used to have a soft brush shaped like a mushroom that I would use to brush mushrooms off before using them. I don't like to wash them off with water. That will make even a fresh mushroom somewhat slimy. It does something to the texture that I just don't like.

Grilled chicken with wine, garlic, and mushrooms, and a dash of soy sauce. Yum!

I bought mushroom kits from this place 10 years ago. Highly recommend.

Start a compost pile for morels. I inoculated much of 'my' greenway with morel spawn just after I bought this house in 1993. Little did I know that my house was lot #1 in a new housing development. My neighbor to the north thanked me for all the mushrooms, but didn't share a single one. I got that spawn from the local cooperative county extension office.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fungi Perfecti

I grew them from a kit too, but found the cost to be a bit much. Here I can buy nice big mushrooms at Costco and the money I paid is less per pound compared to a kit. Once they do sprout in the medium, however, they get big really fast. My kit lasted only about 3 to 4 weeks and produced only about 5 or so every few days. Once the medium stopped producing I tossed it into my compost pile.

me personally i like the taste of a spoonful of dirt over mushrooms. being a cook for 9 years i have cooked more than my share of them and i make one mean stuffed mushroom i have been told. i haven't eaten a mushroom since back when my mom made me. i cant even eat something that someone cooked that had mushrooms in it because its all i can taste. a few people have tried to trick me before. but i can smell them way to well. i like to cook with them for other people of course. but i could never eat one. used to make a lot of grilled portobello burgers at the coop and everyone loved them. its kinda hard to judge your own food when you cant eat it

nick

Hold your nose.. Wish I could taste things better. About the only veggies I don't care for are artichokes. To me, they taste like your eating grass..

I hated mushrooms right up until I was about 19 years old. The only mushrooms I ever saw were those nasty little things that you got with frozen entrees. I'd pick them out. Then when I was 19, I went with my boyfriend and several other people to the local Benihana's. The chef chopped up fresh mushrooms with everything else and cooked them on the grill. I didn't want to embarrass myself, so I tried a couple.

Lo and behold, they were good! Now I love fresh mushrooms.

But I still hate those nasty little mushrooms that you get in frozen entrees or some restaurants like Village Inn. I still pick them out.

And much as I love fresh mushrooms from the store, even they pale compared to the ultra fresh mushrooms you pluck out of a mushroom kit.

A lot of the veggies I like as an adult are ones that I never had to eat as a child. My mother was a typical 50s cook, and everything had to be boiled until it was dead, dead, dead.

> My mother was a typical 50s cook, and everything had to be boiled until it was dead, dead, dead.

Lol... mine too! And she would buy perfectly good bananas and let them near rot before making banana creme pie.

Eat your peas!! Could not leave the table until finished the darn things. Ditto liver. Overcooked the dickens out of it. Hated them with a passion. When they replaced our kitchen table (we only used the dining room table with guests) a 'treasure trove' of dried bits and pieces came rolling out of the area where the extra table leaf was stored. Years worth! LOL Thankfully I was off to university at the time.

Now I absolutely love both peas and liver.

jt

Growing up I hated cooked mushrooms, now I know it was because they were overcooked. I've started eating more vegetarian meals, pizza with mushroom included. Just the other day I had a taste test of a mushroom dish and was surprised with how good it was, I even made it myself the next day with the kids asking for seconds, next time I will use more than 1 cup. I even have bought a mushroom kit to try growing my own.

My husband won't eat many veggies and judging from the way his mother cooks them I don't blame him. He won't even try the way I cook them.

A few years ago, I ordered some spawn from Fungi Perfecti. It was the Shitaki kind. My first attempt at growing turned out quite well - beginner's luck probably, considering the dry climate they had to grow in.

I decided the only way to keep them from contact with other "unfriendly" organisms - molds, was to isolate them. These are wood mushrooms - rather than compost/manure types. The first thing was to buy some wood logs, as none in my yard would do. A friend happened to have some oak logs that were fresh cut (important), and had a good solid bark outer covering (important too).

So the spawn comes infused in small wood sawdust plugs from the sellers, and these plugs are inserted into the logs, after holes of that diameter are drilled in the logs. When all the plugs are placed, the holes are sealed with wax and the logs stacked in a cool/airy environment.

My only alternative to a cool/airy environment was to put the logs in an old rabbit hutch, after I cleaned/disinfected it, then placed in a shady spot. The logs were watered almost every day, and lo - they really did sprout nice firm beautiful "shrooms" - don't recall how long it took.

That worked quite well until the logs finally developed "other" invading organisms and that was the end of the experiment. The mushrooms were excellent, especially served fresh with spinach salad.

The final decision tho - was that my dry climate didn't really lend itself to this type of culture - although if I could find an outside area that was cool and receptive to it, I would try again. The chances are too great that other invading fungus/molds would dominate.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

When I grew reglar white mushrooms it was done in a big cardboard box lined with a plastic bag. The growing was done in my basement where the temps rarly go higher than about 55 degrees. I kept the top of the box covered with a sheet of black plastic.

I worked several years in the highland forests of central Africa, and there were dozens of species of edible mushrooms, some the size of an umbrella. We used to buy them by the grocery bag full, about $ 0.10, and make mushroom 'catsup' using the old, English definition of the word a 'salted extract'. We'd use a non-reactive container, layer mushrooms and salt, let sit a few days, collect the liquid, sterilize by bringing rapidly to a boil, then acidifying it with vinegar, and stored in the fridge.

This was pretty tasty stuff. A tea spoon full would flavor a bowl of soup.

I can't do mushrooms here, its just too arid.

In a cardboard box covered with a a sheet of black plastic in an area at about 50 degrees is fine. The box takes up about a cubic foot of space and can yield about 3-5 pounds of mushrooms before the medium poops out. Then you toss that goop into the compost pile. Mushroom juice is great in soups, but be sure its juice and not the medium or soil mixed in, as it can get a bit odd tasting, and gritty. Even though they used to claim that mushrooms absorb water when cleaned, they don't, so wash away and not to worry about the water.