Wild chanterelles grow on the HaaShrooms farm in Goochland. (Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce)
Born to Be Wild
“Want to see something cool?” Steve Haas asks a group of a dozen participants during a recent wild mushroom and food hunt on his property in Goochland, a 65-acre fungi playground.
Haas is enchanted by mushrooms, his life a series of moments defined by mycelium: the first morel he ever foraged with his late grandfather, a hunt for a nature conservancy in Maui and the rare umbrella polypore it took him 25 years to find.
Part storyteller, part historian, Lynchburg native Haas is a natural teacher, most at ease when talking about mushrooms, other wild plants and their medicinal magic. When the former massage therapist witnessed mushrooms take off in the culinary world a decade ago, he saw it as a chance to follow his true calling.
“When my friends were going out on weekends, I was trying to rally everyone to go foraging and mushroom hunting,” Haas says. “I’ve been foraging all my life. Some of my first memories are hunting for mushrooms.”
Steve Haas holds up an edible wild mushroom called old man of the woods during a recent group hunt on the farm. (Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce)
Self-taught, the father of three describes nature as “God’s grocery store” and mushrooms as gifts. His favorite compliment to receive from visitors: “The woods will never look the same to me again.”
“The goal is to not make the woods look like a jumble of trees and plants, but [to] open it up and see the value in different fruits and plants,” he says, adding that to him, foraging is a way to ground himself.
Over the past decade, Haas and his wife and co-owner, Elizabeth, have expanded their business — HaaShrooms — to include mushroom coffee, tea, spice rubs and vinaigrettes, as well as a line of skincare products using tremella mushrooms called Forage Skincare. Supplying restaurants from Southbound to Shagbark and appearing at area farmers markets, Haas refuses to sell any mushrooms that are more than 24 hours from being picked.
Turkey tail mushrooms are known for their medicinal and immune-boosting qualities. (Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce)
“We go out of our way to produce the best mushrooms money can buy,” he says. Each week, HaaShrooms cultivates 600-900 pounds of shiitake, maitake, reishi, lion’s mane and a variety of oyster mushrooms on oak sawdust beds inside an 800-square-foot shed on the property.
Despite a lifetime of accumulated knowledge, he still learns something new every day, and despite a 100% success rate on group hunts, the 58-year-old hasn’t become complacent.
“I stress out 24 hours before [a hunt], I’m a nervous wreck,” he admits. “It’s 30 to 40 people with high expectations,” he says. “It’s called hunting for a reason.”
However, the expert says confidently, “I know I can take you on a hike for two hours and blow your mind.”
Rudy Karkosak expanded to selling produce along with his mushrooms almost a decade ago. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Man in the Van
“I was just the man in the van, always picking up and delivering,” says 49-year-old Rudy Karkosak, who founded Rudy’s Exotic Mushrooms & Produce more than 25 years ago.
After graduating from the University of Richmond in 1993, the Delaware native found himself restless. At the time, his sister was dating a mushroom grower in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a small town known as the Mushroom Capital of the World and home to half the country’s commercial mushroom crop.
Karkosak began driving north on a regular basis to fill his van floor to ceiling with fresh farm-picked mushrooms. His road trip essentials: binders of CDs, sunflower seeds and water.
As he knocked on the doors of restaurants back in Richmond, the oysters, shiitakes and portobellos in his haul caught the eyes of eager chefs, varieties exotic at the time compared with what was widely available.
“Most produce companies weren’t carrying those items, mostly just white mushrooms,” he says. “The mushrooms definitely sold themselves.”
Karkosak saw an opportunity, and in 1994 he officially launched the business. As Richmond’s food scene continued to expand, he began adding other local and conventional produce to the company’s offerings.
“I chose one product at a time,” he says, noting that Hanover tomatoes were first to join the mix. “I learned in business a long time ago, don’t do something unless you need to.”
The operation has grown into a multi-employee venture with seven vans and Karkosak carving out his own distinct role in the local supply chain. “I’m a small-time distributor, not a grower,” he says. “I’m already going to these places, why not bring me 20 boxes and I can send them all over town for you?”
(From left) North Coast Robot Farm owners Jacin and Katie Buchanan. (Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce)
‘Let’s Grow Mushrooms Instead’
In a 10-by-10 foot cavelike room, husband and wife Katie and Jacin Buchanan grow oyster, fuzzy lion’s mane and chestnut mushrooms. What began as an experiment in their Museum District backyard as an effort to be more sustainable has evolved into North Coast Robot Farm, a 2-year-old venture with a modest client base that includes Good Foods Grocery and Carytown restaurant The Broken Tulip.
“We love to grow food and kind of maxed out the space we had in the city for growing outdoors, so we challenged ourselves with learning inside,” says Katie, 29, noting that they have plans to relocate from their current space and expand to farmers markets within the year.
The public historian-turned-farmer says creating a sterile environment with the perfect temperature and humidity for mushrooms to thrive was the most challenging part of getting started in the niche market, but they’re learning.
“Everybody is really supportive ... especially [regarding] the species small growers focus on,” she says. “You normally don’t walk into Walmart and see lion’s mane [mushrooms].”
Katie grew up in Hampton Roads, the daughter of a waterman, and early on she saw the power in being self-employed and the importance of being able to provide food. The name of North Coast Robot Farm is tied to a concept developed by futuristic architect Buckminster Fuller that suggests one day robots will do the work for humans so they can instead spend time on their own pursuits.
“[It’s a] ‘Work is for robots, let’s grow mushrooms instead’ kind of thing, wanting to break the chain of [conventional] employment,” she says.
Katie says that she and Jacin also appreciate foraging for mushrooms — “There’s that one time of year you can have chanterelle risotto, so you better jump” — and want people to think more critically about where their food comes from.
