“Terrific Battles”: Pests, Disease, and Technological Change at St. Paul’s Mushroom Caves
The Greeks and Romans were fond of eating mushrooms collected in meadows and woods but it was not until about 1650, in Paris, that one particular species, the White Mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), was actually domesticated, or cultivated. (Other species had been cultivated in China many years earlier.) These cultivated mushrooms thrived on horse manure, but […]