My sister could tell the story much better, but when I was little I was obsessed with mushrooms. In the sense that, when my family ate Chinese takeout we always got this one called Moo goo gai pan that had a lot of dark colored mushrooms cooked in the sauce. And I would finish my portion really fast and go from person to person, I believe on my knees, begging for their mushrooms.
I had forgotten that story until I went out to dinner with the Wellesley program people here, maybe two weeks ago. We were at a restaurant named Flein and after much deliberation and explanation of the menu choices, I decided to go a with the Gulasch. This is a typical Austrian dish based on bright orange mushrooms in a spicy sauce.
Now, food is a very hot topic of discussion here. Alexandra said that you can meet any Austrian and talk for the first 5-10 minutes about whatever, but then the rest of the conversation will end up being about food. So far, I have found this to be accurate. So I shouldn't have been surprised when someone remarked how strong my affinity for mushrooms must be, since on my very first night in the city I had also in fact ordered a mushroom entree. That time it was a darker and smaller mushroom, called Steinpilze. And from there we embarked on a long explanation of the many varieties of mushrooms, and ending with the story about me begging for mushrooms from the dinner table.
And now I'm sitting here having store bought instant mushroom soup for dinner, and it is also astonishingly quite wonderful. I would liken it to being a much classier version of Ramen, and the price of 45 cents a bag is hard to beat.
My favorite meal when I was in Germany was a dish which, if I remember correctly, was made of mushrooms, mushrooms, and more mushrooms. It was great!
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