Pickled mushrooms

"We started this topic last week. We are continuing from where we stopped." Mr Benard, with his back to the students, wrote the topic on the white board.

"Who can remind us of the methods that we discussed in the last class?" he turned to ask the students after writing "Methods of food preservation" on the board.

Mr Benard was a tall man with curly hair. He had a dashing personality and cosmic smiles. The students looked up to his biology class every week.

Many hands were up to answer the question.

"Eeeeeem...." He scanned his eyes through the class. "Yes, Ahmed. Give us one of the methods of preserving food."

"Canning," Ahmed responded immediately.

"Correct. Give him a round of applause."

The class responded with a few seconds of clapping.

"Who can give us another method?"

Three more students listed the other methods discussed in their previous lesson. The methods are fermentation, freezing and drying.

"That is wonderful," Benard applauds his students.

"Another method of food preservation that we will be discussing now is pickling.

"Have any of you heard of the word pickling?"

There was a few seconds of quietness in the class before Ahmed raised his hand again.

"I only heard of picking as a method of separation that involves heterogeneous mixtures of solid materials."

"Ahmed," Benard cuts in. "The word is pickling and not picking."

Benard went to the board and wrote the word pickling.

"Ooooh. I am sorry, Sir," Ahmed replied before taking his seat.

"Pickling is a method of preserving food by anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. This method is very good in preserving vegetables."

"Sir," Kola raised his hand as he called the attention of Benard.

"Yes, Kola. Any questions?"

"Among the food preservation methods, which one is the most appropriate for preserving mushrooms?"

"Pickling is a very good method to preserve mushrooms. You can add antimicrobial herbs such as garlic and cloves."

Benard wrote the summary of the procedure on the board for the students.

"Sir, which should I use for mushrooms between brine and vinegar?"

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"Kola. You are so passionate about pickled mushrooms. Do you want to try it out?"

Kola responded with an infectious smile while nodding in affirmation.

"Use vinegar for mushrooms."

Kola was staying with his grandmother in a village, 5 kilometers away from the town where his school was located. One of their staple foods is mushroom based recipes of different types.

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A few days earlier, his grandmother had complained about the effect of drying on the taste of mushroom. Drying was the only method in use in the village to preserve mushrooms.

"I wish there was a way these mushrooms can be preserved to maintain its taste for weeks," grandma lamented to Kola. "Once dried, it loses its natural taste when used."

"I think the solution is to have access to refrigerate it. If the contractor handling the electrification project is serious with completing the job on time, we would have considered buying a fridge. I believe that it would solve the problem."

"Do you know how many years these poles have been erected?" Grandma pointed to the electricity poles erected without connecting cables across the village and to a neighboring town where Kola was schooling.

"No, grandma."

"This is the seventh year. It's not the fault of the contractor but the government.

"With our economic situation, can we afford a fridge? I wish we get another cost effective method to adopt in preserving the mushrooms."

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This conversation happened on Saturday and Kola learned about pickling the following Monday.

As he returned home that afternoon, he was like a dog with two tails. He was happy that there is another method to try out in the preservation of mushrooms.

He broke the development to his grandmother upon arriving home.

"Grandma, I learned a method of preserving mushrooms for up to a month and more. It's called pickling. It's not expensive. All that we need is vinegar, garlic and water in addition to the mushrooms that we are preserving."

An electric pulse went through Grandma's bone. She was overly excited. Without hesitation, she gave her approval.

"Those materials are easy to come by. I will get them for you tomorrow."

The following day, the materials were gotten for kola as promised.
Grandma watched kola in a great awe as he implemented the procedures involved in pickling mushrooms.

Grandma had cleaned the mushrooms thoroughly before Kola's arrival from school. Kola put a large pot of water and vinegar to boil. He added the mushrooms and cooked for about 20 minutes. He drained the mushrooms. He brought mushroom marinade to a boil. He cut garlic into small pieces and placed them in mason jars. Each jar was filled with mushrooms and marinade. He covered them and stored them.

Four weeks later, Kola advised his grandmother to make use of part of the pickled mushrooms to see what the result would be.

One of the jars was opened and the mushrooms used to prepare a special bean soup.

The texture of the mushroom wasn't only pleasing to grandma but the sour taste that the vinegar gave to the soup perfected the preferred taste of the soup. It was a great discovery in the village. Other households soon keyed into the choice of pickling mushrooms.

Kola identified a business opportunity in it and he started preserving it for the villagers at a cost. This helped him to attend to some of his education needs. His poor grandmother was relieved of some financial burdens.