My favorite of the appetizers was the wood ear mushroom salad, a refreshing mix of large wood ear mushrooms, garlic, a vinegary sweet sauce and a selection of almost pickled vegetables.

I loved the Vietnamese steamed cheung fun - gorgeous steamed rice pancakes filled with prawns and minced pork, shallots, wood ear mushrooms and carrots.

Ever since this fruitful venture, HFF has been growing mushrooms using the Japanese technology of bottle cultivation, employs 20 staff members and grows Pleurotus eryngii(""Alli [TM]" or "King Oyster" or "Eryngii"), Pleurotus ostreatus ("Gray Oyster"), Hypsizygus marmoreus ("Brown Shimeji", "Kea Shimeji[TM]" or "White Shimeji"), Auricularia cornea ("Pepeiao" or "Wood Ear") and Agrocybe aegerita ("Pioppini" or "Black Poplar").

"It's a wood ear mushroom, so called because it looks like a baby's ear," Martin explains, picking it and holding it out for me to look at.

FISH SHAVINGS, DRIED wood ear mushrooms, and seaweed gelatin weren't sold at the local grocery store in Versailles, Indiana, when Linda Furiya was growing up there during the 1970s.

Furthermore, he discussed ways a conventional wood ear corn crib could be modified to store shelled corn.

And wood ear mushrooms are thought to lower cholesterol levels.

There are multiple variations to this dish as well, some made to appeal to vegetarians by excluding meat and adding water chestnuts, onions, other vegetables, or wood ear fungus.

CAMPFIRE CLOUD EAR AROUND the campfire Cloud Ear is also known as Wood Ear. Wash approximately 500g of mushrooms and add to water.

Oyster mushrooms in particular and wood ear mushrooms grow all over the place in the woods around here.

Finely chopped prawns, pork, shallots and wood ear mushrooms came in steamed rice pancakes that were transluscent.

They look other worldly, slinky, moist transparent skins containing minced meat, prawns, wood ear mushrooms and spring onions.

Cultivation of Pepeiao: the Hawaiian Wood Ear by Joao Kopy-towski Filho and Meire Cristina Nogueira de Andrade reviews the ancient history of Auricularia cornea, how it was discovered in Hawaii and the methods used to grow it by Hamakua Heritage Farm.

Watercress sauce, from above 4 pickled chanterelle mushrooms 4 pickled wood ear mushrooms 4 pickled royal trumpet mushrooms 4 pickled porcini mushrooms 3 king oyster mushrooms, sliced paper-thin For the garnish:

Also helping prepare the meal has been Rebecca O'Brien who was given the job of chopping some of the weird and wonderful vegetables, including the curious wood ear mushrooms.