Edible wild mushrooms have emerged as a trendy new cuisine in China, with their many distinct flavors and textures attracting a large following.

The rising popularity of mushroom based dishes is good news for restaurants and related businesses in China's southwestern Yunnan Province, known as the "kingdom of wild fungi".
At some local hot pot restaurants, where diners cook mouthfuls of food in a shared, simmering broth in the middle of the table, wild fungi are now the main part of the menu.
"A key recipe for this dish is soup. The ingredients include 16 varieties of wild mushrooms, chicken, marrowbone, and mineral water, which are cooked together for four hours," said Ouyang Qinghui, a chef at Juncai Wild Mushroom Hot Pot Chain.
Even after the broth is made, patrons also need patience to enjoy the dish. Mushrooms must be cooked for a minimum time of around 20 minutes before they can be consumed, because some of them might be poisonous if not fully cooked.
Wang Wenzhong, the founder of Juncai Wild Mushroom Hot Pot chain, says wild mushroom-based, non-spicy hot pot is becoming increasingly popular in recent years as people develop a real taste for the natural delicacy.
"We now have a total of 13 restaurants, which have received an average of 7,000 customers every day this season. The business has been improving since 2018, before the pandemic. And to my knowledge, there are several hundred more restaurants featuring wild mushrooms in Kunming than last year," he said.
Many foodies, meanwhile, admit that they just cannot resist the distinct flavors.
"It's very tasty. Although it's not as spicy as the food of my hometown, I still love it," said Xiao Xinrong, a diner from central China's Hunan Province.
Catering is just one part of the mushroom industrial chain. Today, many other types of products are also being developed to meet people's diverse needs.
Yu Jialing, the manager of Manerow Natural Food Development, which products a series of products including fried termite mushrooms, freeze-dried mushroom slices and flavoring, expects the market to continue growing in the coming years.
"Our sales volume for last year was about 98 million yuan, and it's expected to exceed 100 million yuan (13 million U.S. dollars). I've been busy purchasing the wild fungi in bulk these days to process into different products. The orders are pouring in, and I can see the market heating up," he stated.
But as the industry "mushrooms", analysts in the sector caution that more standards and norms are needed to better regulate the market.