I love black shimenji.

I had cooked black shimenji several times before someone else said that I should wash them.

I said, “no I never wash them”, confidently and began to break up the clumps.

The other person said, “well they smell like shit”, to which I replied, “that’s just the natural smell of black shimenji”.

Well, after a few more exchanges, and I always say that I am a man of science, we were unable to come to an agreement, so I proposed an experiment.

“We will wash half of the mushrooms we have, and leave the other half as is, that’s the control. We cook both batches, the unwashed and the washed, and do a smell and taste comparison.”


We even had coffee grounds on hand because I once went into a Sephora and they had coffee grounds everywhere, to _neutralize your nostrils_.

The conclusion was, and this I have to admit through a bubbly stomach, that the black shimenji I’d been buying and not washing, and cooking, and eating, were definitely covered in cow shit.

The washed mushrooms not only smelled like regular mushrooms but they also looked like they had absolutely no shit on them, unlike the other batch that was covered in little brown things I had only assumed were little mushroom bits, up until that point.

However, it is important to note that the unwashed batch did taste better than the washed.