The third book from The Gourmand makes room for the mushroom

Mushrooms come in all shapes and sizes. There’s those we cook with – the bulbous chestnut, long stemmed enoki and otherworldly globes of lion’s mane – and the brightly coloured and spotted growths often found in wooded areas, those you best avoid at all costs unless you’re a seasoned forager with extensive knowledge of their potential poisonousness. Such a span of visual richness, as well as their “earthy recipes and magical stories”, says creative director David Lane, made the mushroom the perfect ingredient for the third issue of The Gourmand, following on from the legacy of the lemon and the egg.

As per the previous two editions of the series – a collaborative project between David and editor-in-chief Mariana Tweed – the simple cover features a singular image of the food in question on a white background, with no text in sight. Shot by Bobby Doherty, a continued collaborator on the series and an image-maker known for his up-close-and-personal appraisal of objects and food-stuffs, the covers strip each food-muse down to its barest form. “Bobby’s unique in that he can elevate everyday objects to feel incredibly iconic,” says Marina. “Whether it’s an egg, or a mushroom or a lemon, we work with him to create an image that is the perfect and most archetypal version of that ingredient.” This time round it’s the button mushroom, with its woody stem and feathered interior, the stark background enhancing its mythical quality. If you’d never seen a mushroom and then looked at this cover, it would be hard to tell if it was the size of your little finger, or as towering as an oak tree.

Inside the book you’ll find more still life shots from Bobby, as well as a host of stunning archival imagery: an 11th century Anglo-Catalan religious fresco that uses decorative fungi to depict God’s creation of plants, and beautiful lithographs from 1827 that divide the species up into poisonous and non-poisonous. This imagery is interspersed with recipes you definitely can eat. “The recipes in this book are all so delicious,” says David. “They are painstakingly developed and tested – readers should definitely spend time making and enjoying them.” You might find yourself inspired to whip up some mushroom tempura, a trusty omelette, or a raw porcini salad finished with greens and parmesan.

The book takes its investigation of mushrooms one step further, with stories and essays centred on fungi that touch on music, science, philosophy, medicine, design and more. One chapter David thinks It’s Nice That readers might be particularly interested in is Form Follows Fungi, an investigation into the mushroom’s prevalence in architecture and design. As is to be expected with such an in-depth survey, some pretty wild facts and theories were unearthed (ahem) – one that particularly stands out to Marina is the speculation that “mushrooms might be from outer space”. After spending so long staring at their strange forms throughout this new book, we wouldn’t be so surprised if they were.