applestar wrote:Haha I HAD to find out more --
Tremella fuciformis, the snow fungus Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for January 2006
https://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jan2006.html
Since it was found growing on wood in nature, it was assumed that this fungus was using the wood for its nutrition. However, for many centuries Tremella eluded cultivation. So why can't it be cultivated on wood, like shiitake, Oyster mushrooms, the pom pon mushroom, or enoki? In the absence of wood, this species tends to grow as a yeast, adding another problem for potential cultivators, who threw out the subcultures as contaminants, thinking they had one of several hundred species of yeasts, ...
The process is relatively easy once you know the ecology of the growth....
I also found out it's also known as Shiro Kikurage in Japanese (and the kanji/Chinese? 雪耳 -- going off-topic but "kikurage" is the black or tan wavy fungus often found in Chinese (and Japanese) food, and in Japanese means "Tree Jellyfish" -- written in kanji as 木耳. First character is "tree" but the 2nd character is "ear". Above, 雪耳 characters are "snow" and "ear" ). ---maybe I'm the only one who found all these intriguing...
Found this on instagram labeled as purchased at Hmart, so I'll look for it next time I'm there. Maybe they keep them in the front herbal medicinals cases with gingseng, etc.
Here's an approximation of what mine looks like:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANgTLkgjpIU/U ... re+056.jpg. The lotus seeds are usually only sold at Asian markets; when buying the dates don't buy the sticky Medjool ones (ours are jujubes from the tree). Have fun making it!
