The republic of South Korea, a major power in the economy of East Asia with its 50 million people, gives you an instant culture shock when you arrive in the modern Incheon airport of suburban Seoul. Of unexpected extraordinarily beautiful architecture and only opened in 2001 after 10 years of construction, the airport seems part of a new world. Indeed, it is symbol of modern Korea, modern architectonics combined with the warmth of ancient culture. Through beautiful landscape the visitor is led into metropolis Seoul, crowded residence of at least 8 million inhabitants. Sky scrapers and other tall buildings determine the view, traffic lanes with heavy traffic move over and under the impressed visitor. This is Asia, rapidly becoming superpower in the world of expanding economic production.

Between noisy traffic lanes you will find big American type supermarkets and small traditional Korean food stores. They all have one thing in common: the quality of the offered food and vegetables is impeccable.

Part of Korean diet consists of  spicy lactic acid fermented vegetables, mainly varieties of Chinese cabbage, radish, cucumber and leek. This dish, called Kimchi, is made as we make our sauerkraut but is much richer in composition, it contains hot spices, fermented fish, shrimps, oysters and lots of garlic. It is found everywhere. Big brown stone pots that you often see in front of a restaurant are used to make the fermentated product. Fresh beef, tenderloin, is thinly sliced and barbecued at the table together with several sliced mushrooms, garlic and onions. The tasty result is packed in fresh vegetable leaves, mostly romaine lettuce or local varieties, some kimchi added, sprinkled with herbs and dipped in hot sauce and eaten. This fresh food goes together with soup, rice or noodles. Quite a filling experience!!

Mushrooms on sale

I visited several supermarkets to look for the variety and quality of vegetables and mushrooms that were on sale. One of those was the large French owned Carrefour, near to the Seoul football stadium. Vegetables I saw never better of quality and exhibition in the racks, at least twenty different leaf plants used as lettuce, kept cool and continuously sprayed with a mist of water to keep moist and prevent drying out.

The mushrooms that I saw for sale here were white buttons, crimini, large brown cups of Agaricus, Shiitake fresh, bundles of small Flammulina velutipes, Oyster mushrooms, of course Pleurotus ostreatus, but also Pleurotus eryngii. The mushrooms were mostly prepacked and offering a variety of sorts in a single pack. They all were very fresh and showed no sign of blotch or other browning.

Pleurotus eryngii are something special. Having a big stipe and only small cap, they look similar to the boleti we have in Europe and the US. In packs they are sold per two, they can be sliced thinly and fried or baked. Combining elegance with taste, eryngii is a very attractive, commercially interesting mushroom. Flammulina seemed the big seller, understandably because it fits well in Korean, Chinese and Japanese traditional food.

Although no medicinal mushrooms were visibly on sale in the supermarket, there was a multitude of derived products available, i.e. tablets, teas and especially soft drinks in small 30 ml bottles. The picture shows an example of what could be obtained. (fig 3) There is a large assortment of health drinks to be found in Korean supermarkets, shops, restaurants and especially in road cafes and in road stalls. Mushroom drinks look attractive in their nice brown and green glass bottles, taste good, and have an obvious appeal to the health interested customer.

In the traditional shops medicinal mushrooms were the obvious articles on sale next to the local red Ginseng and its derivatives. Everywhere Lingzhi, Ganoderma lucidum, was found as dried mushrooms, infusions, tea bags or capsules sold as food supplements. Also Phellinus linteus, known under its Chinese name as SangHwang mushrooms were sold, although at a much higher price than most other mushrooms. The most expensive, but hardly available, were wild Cordyceps sinensis (winter worm, summer grass) and its replacement the cultivated medicinal Cordyceps militaris.

Production and prices

Korea is a rather large producer of edible mushrooms. Mushroom farms are found all over the country. Total annual production is approximately 200.000 metric tones. Pleurotus sp, Oyster mushroom is the largest, followed by Flammulina (Enoki take), Shiitake, Agaricus bisporus, the very tasty Pleurotus eryngii and lastly the medicinal mushrooms Phellinus and Ganoderma. The figures show the composition of the assortment and amount of the different mushrooms. Market price of fresh mushrooms can be seen from the same figure.

It is not surprising that Pleurotus eryngii is considerably more expensive than the button mushroom, shiitake and Oyster mushroom. Only Enoki take has a lower price, not related to quality but to production volume; Japanese built turn key farms leading to a slight overproduction. In the regular medicinal segment cultivated Phellinus linteus is expensive, having a market price of $250 per dry kilo. Ganoderma and Shiitake cost approximately only one tenth of that. Cordyceps sinensis which is only produced at very small volume for a niche market costs even more than Phellinus.

The republic of South Korea invests enormously in the study of the young generation. Many universities have been established after American model. All are crowded with ambitious male and female students. The general level of education and research is high and it is increasingly difficult to find a job without being university graduated. Korea’s economy is booming again, and clearly, agriculture will not stay behind.

Korea is a tiger.                                                                              

Phellinus linteus is a wood decaying basidiomycete mushroom that was classified as Polyporus 150 years ago; in Chinese herbal books it was already known for its medicinal qualities over a thousand years ago. The mushroom grows on Mulberry trees and can reach a size of appr. 80 centimetre wide and have a weight of 10 kilogram (figure).

Sang Hwang, in Japanese Meshima, is considered the strongest tumor proliferation suppressor of all. Phellinus contains biologically active polysaccharides, triterpinoids and small tumorsuppressor proteins. It has been claimed that Phellinus exhibits immunological enhancement, maintenance of homeostasis and regulation of biorhythm. Also, Phellinus extracts are anti-mutagenic and may play a role in the prevention of cancer. There are reports of  effects on allergy and autoimmune disease. Most active extracts are made of old fruitbodies collected from the wild, but extracts are also available from cultivated fruitbodies (Figure)  and from mycelial cultures.

I had the chance to visit the largest producer of Phellinus derived food supplements. Frankie Chan owns Amazing Grace Health Products and imports the wild Phellinus fruitbodies that are used to prepare different food supplements. The production of capsules of  Phellinus linteus polysaccharides and of capsules with mixes of P. linteus polysaccharide and P.igniarius triterpinoids is done by a fully licensed pharmaceutical industry. As polysaccharides are the immunomodulatory agent and can work only indirectly, it seems logical to add triterpinoids to the supplement. Triterpinoids have been published to directly inhibit the growth of several human cancer cell lines.