For the photographer Andrea Gentl mushrooms are more than magical. Her fascination with fungi started in childhood in Western Massachusetts where she would wander through the woods discovering different varieties and draw endless pictures of them. She moved to New York to study at Parsons School of Design where she met her husband and photography partner Martin Hyers. Soon they were shooting for magazines like Martha Stewart Living and working with culinary greats like Julia Child. It was on an assignment in Northern California when she rediscovered the world of mushrooms with Connie Greene, a forager who supplied top restaurants like The French Laundry. “We went to the coast near Sea Ranch and went into the woods with her and it was just mind-blowing. She picked such a variety of mushrooms like I had really never seen. And then we went back to the ranch and she just cooked them in butter. We had them on toast for breakfast. I was photographing beautiful mushrooms. There are all kinds of colors and I had this sort of thought, ‘Oh, you know, I sort of know this. I am familiar with the woods. I'm familiar with what's under my feet, but I just haven't focused on it in so long.” This trip would be the first in a line of many foraging experiences that would ultimately lead to the publication of her new book Cooking with Mushrooms (Artisan, October 11th), a cookbook and travelog to her beloved fungi.
During her 30-year career, Gentl has traveled the globe, always foraging in some way, looking for new ingredients. No matter where an assignment takes her, the first thing she does when she arrives is seek out the local market. Here she chats with the small food producers and farmers discovering the local bounty— mushrooms and beyond. At Venice’s Rialto market she’ll always pick up capers from Pantelleria; in Mumbai she heads to the spice stall where they freshly grind a Masala mix to her exact liking; it was at Sicily’s Catania’s market, that she discovered one of her favorite ingredients strattu, an ingenuity of the Sicilians who take high elevation tomatoes and turn them into a paste by smearing the pulp onto wooden boards and letting them bake in the sun.
It was during the pandemic when Gentl was not traveling that she decided to work on her homage to mushrooms. She was spending her days walking through the woods, finding ingredients like rosehip, nettles, and chamomile to ferment, dry, and fill up the larder. She started to recall all the places she had been, bringing the memories back to life through the recipes that highlight her muse: the mushroom. “The recipes that I feel the most close to are the ones that definitely have some sort of travel inspiration.” Her mushroom ceviche tostadas are an homage to Mexico City chef Gabriela Camara’s tuna tostadas as well as the acidic ceviches she’s sampled in Peru. She recounts a memory of photographing a master Katsuobushi producer in Japan and how this inspired her trout and overcooked mushroom porridge recipe. “We spent the afternoon with him and he showed us how he dries the fish, and then he made this incredible porridge for us. It didn't have mushrooms in it. It was just a beautiful overcooked rice porridge. He said that in Japan when kids aren't feeling well they give that to them so that they'll feel better. I was thinking how every culture sort of has that, that porridge, that thing, that is really comforting when you don't feel so well. And so that's sort of how that recipe came about.” No matter how far away her recipes hail from, they usually recall something from Gentl’s youth. She believes strongly that our taste is shaped early in life and that we are drawn towards the flavors, textures, and memories of that time.
Although she’s traveled the globe foraging, she’s still waiting to discover a wild porcini or the prized matsutake, a sharp smelling variety that grows in Maine and Vermont. “I kind of have a feeling it's probably around here and one day I'm just going to come across it,” she says.
