Where have all the matsutake gone?

My Japanese friends in Kanazawa-City, Osaka and Kawasaki-City have sounded the alarm. Their beloved matsutake mushroom (Armillaria ponderosa) is no longer in bountiful supply. What used to be a celebration of the changing seasons from summer into fall and winter, marked with generous bowls of broth and slivers of the revered matsutake, has now become a concern for them due to the scarcity of domestically harvested matsutake.

Mushrooms can stir memories
of years gone by.

And, where have all have the matsutake gone? Some people have suggested there has been too much demand for them over the past years, thanks to the increased disposable income in Japan. More likely, it is because the pinewood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus), has depleted the matsutake’s favorite habitat, the red pine forests. This invasive worm is considered the most destructive pest of forest and landscape pines in Japan where it invades pines and causes a sudden wilting and then eventual death of the trees regardless of their size or age.

Without doubt there are alternatives to the Japanese harvested matsutake, but my friends believe that this imported product from the US, China, South Korea and elsewhere lacks the distinct flavor and aroma of the domestic matsutake. Distance takes its toll on the quality of the mushroom. They may be right, and I am truly sad for the diminished availability of their native matsutake.

Their comments brought back cherished memories of when my husband and I lived in Puget Sound and were members of Puget Sound Mycological Society (PSMS), long before the age of Zoom. Each fall we would toast our Japanese friends in absentia with bowls of matsutake soup created from a recipe in the PSMS 1969 cookbook, Wild Mushroom Recipes … my goodness that was a long time ago, but the memories of those occasions are as poignant and lingering as matsutake as the tongue.

Matsutake Soup

3 cups water

1 piece dashi konbu 3-inch x 4-inch

1/2 cup dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi)

Matsutake slices (Use just the buds, cut lengthwise)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon Accent

3 tablespoons mirin wine

• Measure 3 cups cold water into a pan.  Add konbu and bring to a boil.  Remove konbu.  Add dried bonito shavings and boil for 3 minutes.  Remove pan from heat.  Let stand until bonito settles to the bottom, then strain.
• Bring the clear broth back to a boil.  Add mushroom slices and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add salt, soy sauce, Accent and wine.