By: Daniella Doria
A “magic” mushroom has been taking the city by storm.
Restaurants in New York are, according to The New York Post, are using mushrooms found in Yellowstone National Park by a NASA scientist to flavor their meals.
Fy is a nutritional fungi protein derived from a naturally occurring microbe (Fusarium strain flavolapis) with origins in Yellowstone National Park.
When experts discovered this microbe in Yellowstone, they scientifically dubbed it Fusarium strain flavolapis (“yellow stone” in Latin). This inspired them to name our protein “Fy” to connect to its origins as the Fusarium of Yellowstone.
Naturesfynd is one of the key food companies that is marketing and selling FY.
Jennifer Gould of The New York Post writes that astronauts are now studying these fungi in space as a food source during long missions.
Back on Earth, Chef Eric Ripert has been using Fy in several dishes at Le Bernardin, the Michelin-starred seafood sanctuary named the top restaurant in the world by La Liste last month.
“We call it here, as a joke, the ‘magic mushroom.’ It’s basically magic,” Ripert told Side Dish. “It tastes like nothing, like milk with a slight umami taste.”
For the past six months, Ripert has served Fy in his desserts, including a chamomile ice cream, and in a squash blossom delicacy. He’s also recently included it in a savory Yukon Gold Potato dish with olive and a sauce vierge, in his $220 vegetarian tasting menu and in a cold hazelnut dessert, reports Gould.
“It is very versatile. Because it’s a protein, it doesn’t break. You can turn it into chicken nuggets, anything,” Ripert told The New York Post, as he prepared the potato dish in his restaurant’s kitchen — with assistants buzzing around him with the devoted intensity and agility of France’s World Cup soccer team.
The New York Post reports Nature’s Fynd, a Chicago-based food tech company, creates Fy products like dairy-free cream cheese and breakfast patties sold in grocery stores for around $5. Yogurt will be next, along with other products to be disclosed in 2023, said Karuna Rawal, Nature Fynd’s chief marketing officer.
Eight-ounce tubs of the cream cheese can also be found next door to Le Bernardin at L’Ami Pierre, a French fast-food-style cafe on East 51st St. where Ripert is a partner with his friend Pierre-Antoine Raberin. L’Ami Pierre smears Fy on what are arguably the world’s best baguettes to make sandwiches with smoked salmon and other vegetarian options.
The Fy microbe grows in an acidic liquid found in Yellowstone hot springs that are “inhospitable to bacteria and organisms that might otherwise contaminate it, rendering pesticides and antibiotics unnecessary,” according to NASA’s website.
Scientific research into the growing of food that is impervious to pests and weather has been going on for decades. Scientists have long been after a product that could lessen or replace our dependence on meat.
One of the best known is California-based The Better Meat Company, launched by founder Paul Shapiro in 2018, who told Side Dish there will be “an explosion of products in the next five years.”
Its mycelium steaks sold out at a Sacramento steakhouse, Bennett’s, and its mycelium foie gras has been a hit at California restaurants and the LinkedIn corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Some the finest culinary fungi grow in the Yellowstone Park: King Bolete Boletus edulis and both Black Morels Morchella elata and Yellow Morels Morchella esculenta occur here. Beautiful to look at but not edible is the Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria.
