Mushrooms are not vegetables. They are fungi—a separate kingdom of organisms that reproduce by spores, not seeds. This distinction matters for how you cook with them, understand their nutrition, and grow them at home. At Adi’s Urban Mushrooms in West Norwood, we work with this biological reality every day, and it shapes everything from cultivation to flavour.
Why aren't mushrooms vegetables?
A vegetable is any edible part of a herbaceous plant—typically leaves, roots, stems, or seeds. Mushrooms belong to the kingdom Fungi, not Plantae. They lack chlorophyll, so they cannot photosynthesise. Instead, they grow from mycelium, a network of thread-like cells that breaks down organic matter and absorbs nutrients from it. This is fundamentally different from how plants grow. When you harvest a mushroom, you’re picking the fruiting body of a fungus, not the flesh of a plant.
In culinary and grocery contexts, mushrooms are often grouped with vegetables because they play similar roles in cooking—they’re savoury, they absorb flavour, and they work in vegetable dishes. But biologically, that's a convenience. Once you understand that mushrooms are fungi, you start to see why they grow, taste and behave differently from a courgette or carrot. That’s where the real excitement begins for growers and cooks.
What does this mean for growing mushrooms at home?
When you grow a mushroom, you’re not planting a seed in soil. You’re introducing mycelium to a substrate—a growing medium like straw, hardwood sawdust, or compost. The mycelium colonises the substrate, breaking it down, and when conditions are right (moisture, temperature, fresh air, light), it fruits into the mushroom you harvest. This is why our mushroom grow kits work so differently from vegetable seed packets. The kit already contains colonised substrate; you just need to provide the right environment. Many people experience their first successful mushroom harvest indoors, on a kitchen shelf or in a bathroom—places where you'd never grow a traditional vegetable.
The beauty of this is that mushroom cultivation is accessible. You don’t need garden space, soil, or long growing seasons. We run cultivation workshops here in West Norwood and at the Community Mycology Lab in Remakery Brixton where people learn to grow oyster and shiitake mushrooms from kits, and then move on to growing from spawn on straw or woodchip. Understanding that fungi work on their own rules—not plant rules—is the moment people realise how much is possible.
How does fungal biology change the flavour profile?
Because mushrooms feed on decomposition rather than photosynthesis, they develop umami compounds like glutamates and nucleotides in ways plants don’t. This is why mushrooms taste savoury and meaty, why they work so well in stocks and broths, and why a handful of dried mushroom powder can anchor a dish. Gourmet varieties—oyster, shiitake, lion’s mane, king trumpet—each have distinct flavour notes because they colonise different substrates and grow under different conditions. A shiitake grown on hardwood develops deeper, more complex umami than one grown on a standard commercial block. This is something we focus on at West Norwood Feast, where we sell small-batch, locally grown mushrooms to local restaurants and markets. The flavour difference is real because the growing conditions and substrate are genuinely different.
Dried mushrooms amplify this further. When you dehydrate a fungus, you concentrate the umami compounds and unlock new flavour dimensions. That’s why a dried mushroom powder or jerky—both things we produce here—tastes so intense and can transform a soup or sauce. It’s a property unique to fungi.
Does the vegetable classification matter for nutrition?
Nutritionally, mushrooms do sit closer to vegetables on the plate than they do to, say, cheese or meat. They’re low in calories and carbohydrates, and they contain fibre and some B vitamins. But their nutritional profile is distinctly fungal. They contain beta-glucans and polysaccharides that plants don’t, and ergosterol (a form of sterol unique to fungi) rather than cholesterol. If you’re thinking about what a mushroom contributes to your diet, it’s helpful to think of them as their own category, not as a vegetable substitute.
In the kitchen and at the table, this doesn’t change much. You still cook mushrooms with vegetables, pair them with grains and proteins, and use them to build flavour. But if you’re curious about what they actually are—which many people who attend our foraging walks or workshops are—understanding that they’re fungi opens up a richer conversation about what they bring to food.
How does this shape the South London mushroom community?
Here in South London, there’s a growing network of people who are curious about fungi. The South London Mushroom Club brings together foragers, growers, and cooks. People come to identify wild mushrooms, learn about cultivation, and share recipes and growing tips. That community exists partly because mushrooms are accessible—you don’t need a garden—and partly because understanding fungi as a separate kingdom makes people think differently about food and growing. Once you realise mushrooms aren’t just ‘vegetables you forgot to plant’, but a whole different way of turning organic matter into food, it becomes genuinely interesting.
At Adi’s Urban Mushrooms, we work at the intersection of growing, cooking, and teaching. We grow small-batch gourmet mushrooms for local restaurants and markets. We make dried mushrooms, jerky, and seasoned powders. We run workshops and foraging walks. We host corporate events. And we’re rooted in the principle that understanding how food actually grows—and what it really is—makes you a better cook and a more thoughtful eater.
What should you do with this knowledge?
If you’re a home cook, knowing that mushrooms are fungi means you can think about them differently in the kitchen. They pair well with other umami-rich ingredients because they share that savouriness. They benefit from high heat and good seasoning. They store differently than vegetables (cool and dry, ideally, rather than in a crisper drawer). If you’re curious about growing, it means you can start with a kit on your kitchen shelf, rather than assuming you need garden space. If you forage, it opens up a whole world of wild varieties that aren’t vegetables at all.
We’re here to help you go deeper. Whether you want to try a grow kit, attend a cultivation workshop, join a foraging walk, or simply buy better mushrooms from a grower who understands what they’re actually doing, get in touch. Understanding fungi, and growing them locally, changes how you think about food.