- Nature, the most powerful
creative force on Earth.
I'm Chef Melissa King.
Cooking has taken me to incredible places.
Wow. (laughs)
From TV competitions and celebrity galas
to countries around the world.
I'm heading out to places I've never been before
to seek out new experiences
and to create new dishes inspired by nature.
Wow. This is amazing.
I'm teaming up with some of the world's greatest explorers
to go further than I've ever gone before.
I love how excited you get about fungal organisms.
- Oh yeah.
- To push my craft, creativity, and my cooking.
This is Tasting Wild.
Rainforests, they cover just 6% of our planet,
but are so important.
(birds chirping)
Not only do they bring balance to our environment
by filtering the air we breathe, but they're home
to some of the world's most unique
and important biodiversity.
Including some species that are staples in my kitchen.
We're here in the Olympic National Forest,
home to one of the only temperate rain forests
in the continental United States,
and I'm here to meet Korena Mafune.
She's a fungal ecologist,
and she studies one of my favorite ingredients, mushrooms.
I'm meeting Korena in what's known as an old growth forest,
this one actually being a rainforest,
and we're goin' on a hike.
Hey Korena. - Hey Melissa.
It's so good to meet you.
- Hi, you too.
- [Korena] Welcome to Olympic National Forest.
- This is gorgeous. - Yeah.
Are you up for a hike? - I would love that.
(birds chirping)
- I'm Korena Mafune,
I'm a fungal ecologist, and I study the interactions
between plants and fungi and the soil systems.
I love being out here in these beautiful old growth forests.
It just gives me this sense of balance
and I'm so lucky to be able to call it my office.
Fungal organisms are so important.
They are everywhere we look.
The ones that we do see are usually mushrooms,
and mushrooms come in all shapes and forms
and they fulfill so many different ecological roles.
They have been here for so long, much longer than us
and they provide a balance in the ecosystem.
I'm so excited to learn about Melissa
and her utilization of mushrooms in the kitchen
and learn about that perspective.
So our plan is to start at Merriman Falls
and work our way down Merriman Creek,
which feeds into Lake Quinault,
and we're hopefully gonna find some really cool things.
But you have to go through some difficulty
to get to these places that are just so beautiful
and will hold all the little secrets
that you see around every corner.
(majestic music)
- Wow. It's so magical.
And the moss is insane.
So what defines an old growth forest?
- So the moss that you see draping off these trees
is one of the defining characteristics
and then it really has to do with the age of the trees,
so 150, 200 plus years old.
- [Melissa] So they're old.
- They're old. Yeah. - They're like ancient.
- Some trees out here are well over 500 years old,
and the ones that I climb are usually
up towards 200 years old.
- So you spend time up in these trees?
- I climb up to the tippy top.
And there's soils on tree branches.
A lot of people come to see these mats of moss
that are hanging off the trees.
- Little magical fairy land.
- But the real treasure is actually
what is under those mossy mats that we call canopy soil.
- What am I holding here?
- Yeah, so canopy soil, it is a soil
and it is so rich in nutrients.
So under those beautiful draping mats of moss
we actually have this organic matter that accumulates
and the trees are growing roots
out of their branches into those mats of moss.
It's an uptake nutrients from those mats.
- Incredible.
There's so much life here that's happening
beyond what we can see.
You really have the coolest job in the whole world.
- You have a pretty cool job. (laughs)
- So where do we start to hunt for mushrooms?
- The waterfall would be a really great place to start
because we can follow it down the river
and I think there'll be some mushrooms
that we can find down there.
(uplifting music)
- Mushrooms tend to anchor a dish.
They carry so much earthiness.
They're very versatile as well.
You can cook 'em fresh, use them dried.
You can turn 'em into powders and infuse 'em into broths,
but they add a boost of flavor to your dishes.
- [Korena] What is really beautiful about the balance
of these ecosystems, it is the circle of life out here.
So the mushrooms are decaying this,
providing habitat to so many organisms.
- [Melissa] It's beautiful.
It's just this sense of rebirth
happening right here in front of us.
- [Korena] Yeah.
(uplifting music)
- [Melissa] I'm that person that gets distracted
when I'm on a hike-
- Always. - I'm always like staring
at things on the ground.
I see some, sorrel here and some licorice fern.
I've made tea with this.
It is a great licoricy flavor.
- Literally, it's called licorice fern. (laughs)
Oh, look what we have here.
- Whoa, what?
- Look at this.
Yeah, so this is a type of bolete,
so the main one that you might be familiar with
is boletus edulis, which is the porcini mushroom.
- [Melissa] Looks a little bit different.
- Yeah, we won't wanna eat this one,
but if we sample this guy
you can see the pores there.
- Like spongy. - Kind of sponge.
Yeah, it's spongy.
There are just billions
of little spores in those little tubes.
- [Melissa] Oh, this is cool. This is gorgeous.
- All right, let's keep going. - All right.
I'm just excited to keep going deeper into the forest.
It's so serene driving through the woods.
Everywhere you look, there's something beautiful to see.
(dramatic music)
You can see the full circle here,
life, but you can also see decay.
Everything here seems to be working
in harmony everywhere I look.
Yeah, this forest that we're driving through is so beautiful
and I love the sense of balance you get
as a person when you're standing in it all.
You could feel the trees like breathing.
You could feel the whole ecosystem-
- Yeah. - Just coming alive.
- [Korena] I'm excited to see what you cook.
- [Melissa] It's a good partnership.
You find the mushrooms, I'll cook 'em.
- Let's get out there and ride - Let's do it.
You lead the way.
- So this is a great place to take a look around
because we're not too far off from the stream.
Let's get over on the other side.
Yes. - Oh my god, they're so cute.
- These are oyster mushrooms.
Do you make any additional odd dishes with oyster mushrooms?
- I cook a lot with every kind of mushroom.
- Every kind of mushroom? - I don't discriminate.
- Neither do. - I love 'em all.
- I'm an equal mushroom opportunist,
so that's great. - I love that.
- When you see mushrooms,
they're just kind of like the fruit of the fungus,
like an apple to an apple tree.
So the actual fungal organism is all throughout this log,
breaking it down and decomposing it
and recycling those nutrients into the forest.
- Amazing.
I love mushrooms, but I know that there's moments
where they're not safe to eat.
- I always tell people, "If in doubt, throw it out."
And we kind of always nerd out and say,
"You can eat all mushrooms, but some you'll only eat once,"
because there are
poisonous mushrooms. (Melissa hums)
These ones are definitely safe to eat.
They are a little young,
but there's some clusters up here that look pretty good.
- How do we go in?
- I would kind of just saw it right there.
- Right underneath?
I like feel bad taking too many.
- [Korena] I always leave a few behind
because leaving some behind
allows those spores to continue to drop,
and so you're not taking all the reproductive structures
and you're allowing them to return that to the ecosystem.
- Just capturing them in that peak moment,
to me as a chef, is so special,
and really maintain the integrity of that ingredient.
I think is what I enjoy doing most.
I'd love to see what else we can find.
- [Korena] All right. Let's keep going down along the river.
- Yeah, let's go check it out.
As a chef, we see mushrooms come in the kitchen
all the time, but to see them growing here
in its natural habitat, there's something special
about being able to harvest your food right on a log.
This whole terrain is making me very happy
and being able to see this.
- Yeah, this is another oyster mushroom
likely the same species that we saw earlier,
but this has had time to mature.
As you can see, if we lift it up,
we see those gills that are holding those fungal spores.
- Flavor gets in there when you cook 'em.
(Melissa giggles) - Yeah.
- Aw, smells so good. It's making me hungry.
Can we harvest this one?
- Yeah. It's ready to go.
(uplifting music)
- It's beautiful. It's magic.
Nature's always the place where I find
the most inspiration in my cooking.
Finding mushrooms like this
and being able to really tell their story through my dish.
Thinking of maybe making some sort of mushroom broth
or a kanji with this to kind of bring in some of my roots.
I mean, you did mention roots and the root system,
so I'm thinking bringing it back to to home and my heritage.
I can't wait to cook for you.
Let's go.
Cooking mushrooms for someone that studies mushrooms,
I wanna get them right.
All of the things that we've gathered together
in the past couple days
I wanna incorporate those ingredients
and build the layers to this dish.
Kanji is the chicken noodle soup of Asian culture.
It reminds me of my family, and I want Korena
to understand who I am as she tastes my food.
(uplifting music)
Yesterday, was incredible, and just thank you so much
for teaching me about all the fungi.
The way you talk about forests is the way I talk about food.
(Korena and Melissa laughing)
- [Korena] Yeah, I'm so curious
to see what you come up with.
- I'm so excited to take you to this really great spot
I found right in the forest and create a dish
that really shows what this place is all about.
- [Korena] I'm so excited. (laughs)
- I love the forest so much. Help me grab some things.
(mysterious music)
Here it is.
- [Korena] Oh, this is beautiful.
- [Korena] I thought you'd like this spot
and you can go ahead and take those mushrooms out.
- Oh, so many beautiful mushrooms.
- I have a lot of my favorite kinds as well
as the ones that we foraged yesterday.
- Yeah, I see some of my favorites,
the morel, chanterelles, we got the shiitakes.
- [Melissa] All right.
I thought it'd be great to cook a rice porridge
mushroom kanji for you.
- [Korena] Yeah, that sounds delicious.
- [Melissa] Start off with some aromatics, onions, garlic.
You keep an eye on that.
I'll grate some ginger,
which is really the base of this dish.
Toss the rice in.
- Stir that in? - Yeah, toast that up.
It's like making a risotto. - Yeah.
- But we're doing a Chinese version of that.
We made this mushroom broth with all the stems,
some kombu, and just slow cook that down.
This is the base of our kanji.
I'm gonna cut some mushrooms,
each with their own personality.
Oh, these are some of the oysters we had from yesterday.
- Oh, yeah. - We have to cook these up.
- Gotta cut 'em up. - It's so cool.
So I'm gonna saute these mushrooms next,
throwing them all together to build a harmonious dish.
Each mushroom has its own unique flavor
and I love caramelizing them getting a beautiful sear on it.
It really brings out the flavor and kind of deepens them.
When it comes to making kanji, at the end of the day,
it's about finding the balance between the softness
of the rice and then the textures from the garnishes.
Again, it's about that harmony. It's about that balance.
Because we're close to the coast here,
I've decided to put some dull seaweed as a garnish.
All of these beautiful caramelized mushrooms
are gonna go right on top.
These are some beautiful little herbs
we foraged together from the sorrel.
I wanted it to just feel like the forest.
- Like a forest in a bowl. - Yeah.
Final touches some fried shallots
for some textures. - Yes.
- Add a little crunch and crispiness.
Some green onions to add a little kick.
Here's your mushroom kanji.
Hope it does your love of mushroom's justice.
- It's beautiful.
- All right.
- Do you stir it up?
- Sure. - Yeah.
- [Melissa] Okay. Get them in there.
- That's so good. That's so good.
I do eat mushrooms and cook with them a lot,
but I haven't eaten them in this manner
and in from such a talented chef, so thank you.
The flavors, they just, they evolve in my mouth
kind of like the forest that has evolved
around us over millions of years.
It's like every little bite has a little secret,
just kind of every corner in the forest that you turn.
- I'm gonna have to toast you to mushrooms.
- I'm gonna have to toast you to cooking, chef.
Thank you. - (laughs) Thank you.
This forest is magical.
It's such a beautiful place to explore and cook.
You can't help but be energized here.
I'm taking away a deeper appreciation for mushrooms
and the balance they provide, and I'm looking forward
to taking that all back to the kitchen.
(inspiring music)