Kate McCaskill
Creamy mushrooms on toast for breakfast is one of the classic Kiwi introductions to the wonderful flavour of mushrooms. They can sit among so much creamy decadence and add a wonderful earthy contrast.
Mushrooms are an incredibly versatile ingredient: Pizza loves them, pasta loves them, rice, noodles and all meats benefit from a few of the fabulous fungi. The good news is that your body loves them too: they’re creaking in selenium, high in potassium and a rich source of B vitamins. It’s something most Kiwis don’t realise about mushrooms – they’re actually a superfood.
Christchurch company Meadow Mushrooms, has started its ‘Food Fight’ campaign to challenge Kiwis to add a handful of goodness to their daily diet and to post photos of their favourite Meadows dish or upload their best Meadows recipe for a chance to win a luxury weekend for two at the Sherwood resort in Queenstown.
Philip and Miranda Burdon
Meadows is the leading producer of mushrooms in New Zealand, hand-picking about nine million mushrooms every week, and from outlandish beginnings it is responsible for introducing mushrooms into the diet of Kiwis up and down the country.
Back in the late 1960s, two opportunistic Kiwis arrived in the village of Yerollakos on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Roger Giles had relatives on the island who told him of an opportunity to invest and grow mushrooms in caves near the village, and he enlisted the help of his England-based Kiwi friend Philip Burdon to help him get started. Full of entrepreneurial spirit, the pair struck it lucky as a tourism boom in Cyprus meant their produce was in hot demand. They even decided that Philip would head home to New Zealand to build new facilities and expand their business. The friends then struck it decidedly unlucky when war came to Cyprus in 1974, and they decided to consolidate their operation in New Zealand. Philip’s daughter, and director of Meadow Mushrooms, Miranda Burdon, explains that the area around their Cyprus cave operation quite literally became a minefield.
Back home in Prebbleton they set about converting the New Zealand public, where mushroom consumption was fairly limited. A lot of hard work, courage and determination meant that 45 years later we’re eating mushrooms at a healthy clip, and Meadow Mushrooms is the market leader.
After some experimentation they’ve settled on the three varieties: white button mushrooms, brown buttons, and brown flat mushrooms. Miranda explains that mushrooms are one of the hardest horticultural products to grow and it has taken many years for them to ace the production side of the business. But when they’re growing, they present an ethereal sight: appearing out of layers of rich compost, they double in size every 24 hours and take 13 weeks to grow into the fungi we know so well.
We like our mushrooms in New Zealand, but nowhere near as much as overseas where, in many Asian and Mediterranean cuisines, they play an integral role – even the Aussies put more away per-person than we do. Miranda concedes that while they were focusing on production at Meadows, the message of the enormous health benefits of mushrooms was never delivered in the way it was with healthfood superstars like kale.
Once known by dairy farmers around the country as ‘cow fodder’, kale was given an extreme makeover into a superfood with nutritionists and dieticians popularising the health benefits of the wrinkled roughage. What followed were some inventive ideas for how to cook kale, and it never looked back. Raise your hand if you haven’t eaten kale chips?
Meadow Mushrooms had a nutritional analysis done on its mushrooms to see how they compared to other healthy food options in the market place. They were amazed by the results. When they took them to dietitians and nutritionists like Nikki Hart to get their take, it was the high level of selenium they jumped on first. New Zealand soils are deficient in selenium, which is important for the immune system as well as maintaining healthy hair and nails. Then it was the decent whack of potassium, which is great for heart health, followed by the potent B vitamins that help reduce tiredness and fatigue and are great for skin and hair health. It’s all about eating your way to wellness and good looks.
Miranda says that while consumer research shows that 79 per cent of all Kiwi households buy mushrooms, the nutritional benefits aren’t well understood. The key is for people to recognise the benefits and to get in the kitchen and make something wonderful with mushrooms. And that’s where the Meadows Food Fight comes in. It’s about using social media to get Kiwis inventing in the kitchen with the chance to win a fantastic prize.
To find out more go to:
Instagram.com/meadowmushroomsnz/
