Why Good Food hasn’t published a mushroom recipe in months

In a trial that has gripped Australia – and the world – one aspect of Erin Patterson’s murder trial has gone unexamined until now. Let’s call it the case of the missing mushrooms.

Between March and July – autumn and early winter in Australia – the days begin to cool and rainfall increases, creating ideal conditions for growing mushrooms.

Foraged mushrooms have been off the menu at Good Food.Credit: Justin McManus

Traditionally, it’s the time of year you could count on finding at least one farmers’ market stallholder selling wild pine or slippery jack mushrooms, gleaned from a secret hunting spot – the cue for food writers to get to work on articles about foraging tours and truffle dinners, and a feast of seasonal recipes.

But that changed in July 2023, when three people died and a fourth was lucky to escape with his life after eating individual beef Wellingtons containing toxic death cap mushrooms at a lunch in Leongatha, 135 kilometres south-east of Melbourne. Since then, fungi have fallen from favour in the food media.

Whether in the interests of propriety, out of respect for the deceased, or to avoid prejudicing the trial or breaching suppression orders, news editors at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have become decidedly cautious about publishing any food content relating to mushrooms.

In April, I published a recipe for mushroom okonomiyaki, the savoury Japanese pancake recipe. But sensitivities around fungi heightened as the trial dragged on.

Two weeks ago, a Good Food columnist wrote an article recommending cooking techniques to give perennially misunderstood vegies such as Brussels sprouts, beetroot, eggplant and mushrooms a delicious makeover. It was helpful but innocuous advice.

But when the article hit the desk of a senior editor, the mushroom content was scrapped. Asked why, the editor argued: “It’s in poor taste to be suggesting ways to make mushrooms more delicious during the trial.”

No doubt it was the right call. Being closely involved in this masthead’s reporting of the case, the editor was highly attuned to the nuance of our coverage and unwilling to publish anything that might appear to make light of a tragic situation.

Several days later, I asked another senior editor when Good Food might resume publishing mushroom recipes, such as those I had commissioned six months earlier from one of Australia’s most creative food writers. “Never,” he replied firmly, if not literally suggesting an everlasting ban. “Three people have died.”

The reluctance is understandable. Not since 2018, when punnets of strawberries were found to be contaminated with sewing needles, has the country been so singularly focused on one ingredient.

The Google Trends graph charting Australian searches for “beef Wellington” shows an almost vertical spike since Monday, suggesting interest has jumped more than 1000 per cent. Perhaps some of those searches are from the cooks reportedly hosting macabre dinner parties serving beef Wellington on mismatched plates.

Featuring medium-rare eye fillet surrounded by duxelles (finely chopped and sauteed mushrooms) and prosciutto inside a crisp puff pastry shell, the ostentatious dish requires a high level of technical skill (and patience) to master its many components.

Good Food contributor Nagi Maehashi, founder of the popular website RecipeTin Eats, says it’s one of the trickiest of haute cuisine classics to crack. And she would know. Maehashi tested and tweaked her recipe many times before it became the centrepiece of her best-selling debut cookbook, Dinner.

Unfortunately, it also became a centrepiece of the mushroom trial, the court having heard that it was Maehashi’s recipe that Patterson adapted for that fateful, fatal lunch.

The beef Wellington recipe from the RecipeTin Eats cookbook Dinner, by Nagi Maehashi.

The dish’s complexity undoubtedly explains why, according to evidence given in court, Patterson returned to the supermarket several times to restock on the key ingredients for the dish, including almost three kilograms of puff pastry, a kilogram of sliced mushrooms, and several eye fillets.

Despite having more than 10,000 recipes in Good Food’s collection, beef Wellington is one dish we don’t have, and that situation is unlikely to change.

Yet sometime soon, once the court case has ended, I hope the news desk will relent on the mushroom ban and allow me to publish other mushroom recipes I’ve had on hold for months.

As the mother of two sons who have dabbled in vegetarianism, I’m conscious of how important they are as a source of protein, nutrients and umami flavour for vegetarians vegans, and anyone trying to reduce their meat consumption.

Australians have long appreciated button and field mushrooms. They’re a staple of “big brekkies” at cafes across the land. In the past decade, we have begun to dabble with a wider range of fungi, including locally grown enoki, shiitake, king oyster and lion’s mane.

Food writers are excited to share the culinary possibilities these mushrooms offer.

Not just yet, though. Apparently, it’s still too soon for ’shrooms.

Roslyn Grundy is Good Food’s recipe editor.

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