Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250102
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LEIGH ANNE LARANCE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Since then, Hope Miller's life has been filled with fungi.
She married Orson Miller, a well-known mycologist who began teaching at Virginia Tech in 1970. Together, the couple have traveled the globe to research all manner of mushrooms, molds and yeasts.
"It's the kind of profession that you can be involved in,'' Hope Miller said of her husband's work.
While Orson Miller teaches biology and mycology at Tech, Hope Miller teaches cooking, crafts and mushroom identification through the YMCA's Open University.
The couple also lead forays for the Natural History Museum, where Orson Miller is curator of the fungi collection.
Orson Miller's fascination with fungi started when he was a boy exploring 25 acres of forest his father owned.
"I noticed there was a disease attacking the trees, and I did a high school project on it,'' he said. He's been wandering the woods ever since.
The lean, graying professor looks like a cross between an academic and a sportsman; in fact, when he was younger, he was offered a tryout with the Yankees. He passed it up, and today botany is his game.
For 11 years, he worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture until he decided to get back into teaching full time.
"I've really wanted to work with students all my professional life,'' Orson said, ticking off the names and occupations of some of the 22 men and women who have received advanced degrees from the mycology lab during his tenure at Tech. Some hold professorships, one is teaching high school science, and another won a Fulbright scholarship to Nepal.
The Millers have made it their life to teach people about the good and bad of fungi. They explain that fungi feed off dead plants and animals, decomposing them for reuse. They are the yeasts used to make such things as soy sauce, leavened breads, wine and beer.
Transplant patients are given a medicine that comes from a mold, which produces a compound that mutes the immune system, making patients more receptive to the new organs.
There also are parasitic fungi, which can damage crops and forest land.
Studying those fungi is part of the research that goes on in Tech's mycology lab, which Orson Miller directs.
He was called for advice when cattle were mysteriously dying in Southwestern Virginia (it turned out they were eating toxic molds), when workers at the Gathright Dam in Covington fell ill because of mold spores, and when a fungus was growing on holding tanks at a major whiskey distillery.
"The lab does a lot of things that don't have the usual connotations when you think of fungi,'' he said.
There's more to fungi than what meets the mouth, Hope Miller points out.
Mushrooms are used to dye yarn and fabric.
"There's a beige fungus that gives the most beautiful purple,'' she said. The couple's home includes artwork made of mushrooms, jewelry made of fungi and hats and pocketbooks that look like suede but actually are made from mushrooms.
They've compiled mushroom guides, one of which has sold about 250,000 volumes. Orson Miller has been called to proofread articles on mushrooms for Time, Newsweek and the National Geographic Society.
"It's always interesting as to where they get some of their information,'' he said. When there was a dispute as to accuracy, he would tell his colleagues, "If you don't believe me, look it up in the World Book Encyclopedia.''
He wouldn't mention, of course, that he wrote the entry.
Another function of the lab is to cultivate different fungi - more than 4,000 are in the collection - to provide samples for research and testing. They're used by pharmaceutical firms that research new drugs and chemical companies that want to know how a new paint will stand up to different types of mildew.
And while 4,000 may seem like quite a collection, it's only a fraction of the more than 100,000 species believed to exist. Orson Miller said botanists have identified probably only 65 percent to 70 percent of all North American species.
Between 5 percent and 8 percent of all mushrooms are poisonous. About the same number are true delicacies.
"People say, 'What about the rest?' And I say it's kind of like eating grass. Not much taste, but it probably won't kill you,'' Orson Miller said.
Hope Miller often brings a special dish to her husband's biology classes for students to sample.
"They say, 'I don't eat mushrooms,''' she said. Then they try her dip, and they're converts.
When it comes to wild mushrooms, most people are wary - and rightly so. Orson Miller said he has been consulted by medical professionals in sometimes fatal cases of mushroom poisoning.
He was called when a family of inexperienced mushroom hunters - grandparents, parents and two teen-age daughters - tried mushrooms while vacationing in the Rocky Mountains. Their only resource was a small field guide.
"They picked this mushroom, and they argued over which it was,'' Orson said. They decided it was edible. It wasn't.
"The grandfather was comatose for 12 hours. The mother couldn't move without vomiting,'' he said. The fungus they thought they'd identified didn't even grow in the Rockies.
Have the Millers ever gotten sick from eating wild mushrooms?
"Once. We had mild diarrhea for about two hours,'' Hope Miller said.
"It was a mushroom that some people have trouble with and some don't,'' Orson Miller explained.
Otherwise, they've had no problems. Botanists are more cautious than the general population, Orson Miller said. When they don't know an area, they go mushroom hunting with guides who do. And they tell their students: "When in doubt, don't eat."
Orson Miller tells his students the story of a 17th century mycologist who persisted in eating everything - and whose luck ran out.
"There are some epitaphs that might be fine, but that's one I don't want,'' he said.
Mushroom research has taken the couple far beyond the New River Valley. They've been to deserts in California and have done field work in the arctic. They've traveled to the Kalahari Desert of South Africa to pick truffles, which sounds like a tame expedition until they explain that they had to watch their step to avoid black mambas, spitting cobras and puff adders.
"Experiences like that are not replaceable,'' Hope Miller said. Next year, they plan a trip to China.
During their travels, Hope Miller also gathered recipes she compiled for her recently released "Hope's Mushroom Cookbook,'' which includes more than 200 pages of recipes for everything from mushroom quiche to crepes to cookies.
"From the time he went back for a Ph.D.... I began collecting mushroom recipes and playing around and developing my own,'' Hope Miller said. "I always said some day, I'm going to write a cookbook.''
When she talks about what's between the pages, it's easy to see that it's more than a collection of recipes - it's a travelogue and a personal journal.
"There's a mushroom dip in there that's absolutely indescribable,'' Hope said. It's one she served - on request - at each of her daughters' wedding receptions. Another favorite is boletes and German white sauce, made with porcini mushrooms culled from the woods during trips to their second home in Idaho.
"We sort of live for it. It's one of the few times we definitely plan the meal around the mushroom,'' she said.
Is Hope the only one in the kitchen?
"I handle the microbiology,'' Orson Miller says.
His wife shakes her head.
"He makes a great mushroom omelette.''
FUNGAL FANTASIES FROM 'HOPE'S MUSHROOM COOKBOOK,' BY HOPE MILLER
Hot Mushroom Dip Especial
1 lb fresh morels (or any other species)
6 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. minced onion
1 lb carton sour cream (may use low-fat sour cream)
2 tsp chicken bouillon granules (or 2 cubes dissolved) (vegetable bouillon may be used if desired.)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp. soft butter or margarine
2 Tbsp. flour
Chop mushrooms quite fine and saute in pan with butter and lemon juice; let simmer 5 to 10 minutes. Add onions, sour cream, bouillon granules, salt and pepper; simmer 5 to 10 minutes more. Make a paste of remaining butter and flour; add to hot mixture; and stir until thickened. Serve hot, in fondue pot or chafing dish, with chips, crackers or fresh vegetables.
Boletes in German White Sauce
1 lb boletes, fresh and sliced
3 Tbsp. butter or margarine
3 Tbsp.each butter or margarine and flour
1 cup liquid (from boletes and water)
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon juice to taste (1 to 2 Tbsp.)
1 egg yolk
1 cup half-and-half
Saute mushrooms in butter until thoroughly cooked. Reserve liquid to add to water to make 1 cup liquid for sauce. Set mushrooms aside. Melt butter in a nonstick pan; add flour and stir constantly to avoid lumps. When thickened add salt and pepper; stir to blend and then add lemon juice. Beat egg yolk and mix with half-and-half. Stir into sauce mixture; add mushrooms and stir well. Serve over meat (especially beefsteak) vegetables, toast or rice.
by CNB