I headed down to Kennett Square to see what was happening, talk to some people, eat some mushrooms, and generally see if I could justify spending an entire day thinking about fungi.
I think I did pretty well.
There was plenty to see, but a few things really stood out.
One of my first discoveries was Pine River’s Italian Truffle Cheese Spread.
I wasn’t expecting to become particularly excited about cheese spread at a mushroom festival.
But here we are.
The truffle flavor was fantastic, and it didn’t take long to convince me that mushrooms and cheese might be one of those combinations that should probably happen more often.
They also had their Black Truffle Cheese, which was another favorite.
It’s one of those foods where you take a bite and immediately start thinking about what else you could put it on.
Crackers.
Bread.
Pasta.
Maybe just a spoon.
I’m not saying I did the last one.
Then there was the pasta from Sweet Amelia’s.
Fresh pasta is already difficult to resist.
Add mushrooms to the equation and, well, I didn’t stand much of a chance.
This was one of those festival stops where you start out thinking, “I’ll just grab a little something,” and five minutes later you’re standing there wondering why you didn’t order more.
It’s also a good reminder that mushrooms don’t have to be complicated.
Put good mushrooms into good pasta and let them do their thing.
The Mushroom Grill Pack
Another thing that caught my attention was the Giorgio Crimini Steak Seasoning Sliced Mushroom Grill Pack.
I liked this idea immediately.
It’s simple, practical, and exactly the kind of thing that makes you look at mushrooms a little differently.
Throw them on the grill, season them up, and you’ve got something that can go alongside a steak—or, honestly, become the main event.
And that’s one of the things I kept noticing throughout the festival.
Mushrooms aren’t just some ingredient sitting quietly in the produce section.
There’s a whole lot you can do with them.
That’s really what the festival is about
Of course, the Mushroom Festival is much bigger than food.
There are growers, vendors, farmers, chefs, mushroom enthusiasts, local businesses and plenty of people who are simply curious about why a small corner of Pennsylvania became the center of America’s mushroom industry.
That’s what I wanted to see.
Not just the mushrooms.
The people around the mushrooms.
And after spending the day walking around Kennett Square, eating far more mushrooms than I had planned, and discovering some products I hadn’t seen before, I came away thinking there’s a lot more to this story than I realized.
There are farms to visit.
Farmers to meet.
Recipes to try.
Families with generations of mushroom-growing history.
And probably a few more cheese spreads I need to investigate.
That’s exactly what I want Penn Mushrooms to be about.
Exploring Pennsylvania’s mushroom country—one farm, one story and one mushroom at a time.
And yes, I’ll probably be back next year.
I’ll try to pace myself on the cheese.