the.com/wood ear
A fungus that eavesdrops on rotting logs and ends up in your soup.
means A floppy, ear-shaped edible mushroom (genus Auricularia) that grows on dead or dying wood and turns up in many East Asian soups and stir-fries, prized for its gelatinous crunch rather than strong flavor.
from A plain-spoken English calque of the Chinese name 木耳 (mù'ěr), literally 'wood ear' — 木 'wood, tree' plus 耳 'ear' — describing exactly what the eye sees: an ear-like growth clinging to a log. The same fungus carries the same picture in other tongues, including the older English name 'Jew's ear,' itself a worn-down folk reshaping of 'Judas's ear,' tied to the legend that Judas hanged himself from an elder tree, on which the fungus often grows.
- latin name
- Auricularia, literally meaning little ear
- texture
- Gelatinous crunch, like edible cartilage
- old remedy
- Used in Chinese medicine for circulation
- grows on
- Dead and dying hardwood trees
- flavor
- Nearly none, it borrows from everything
wood ear fungus — auricularia auricula-judae, edible jelly fungus grown commercially in china producing thousands of tons annually
cloud ear — auricularia polytricha, the black variant commonly used in asian stir-fries and valued in chinese cuisine for texture