My $50 Bowl of Soup

Six weeks ago I signed up for a mushroom ID class offered through the City of St John's rec department. I wanted belly dancing but it was full. The mushroom class was every other Tuesday night for 3 sessions at the MUN botanical garden. We had our last session two days ago. I knew nothing about wild mushrooms before, and I still know very little but it was an interesting introduction none the less.
One thing I learned; people who like wild mushrooms really like wild mushrooms. I am only mildly interested myself, and I confess that even though I could now distinguish a King Bolite from a Morel I am no more likely to go foraging in the forest for them than I was before. However, it is nice to know that if I ever find myself wandering through the woods in the fall, post apocalypse, I won't starve like some people.
Another thing I learned was to properly ID a mushroom, you need to do a spore print. Each mushroom has a specific spore print based on its pattern and colour. This is important because there are a lot of mushrooms that look a like and some are good to eat but others will kill you. This means that if I am wandering around in the forest post apocalypse I better remember to bring a field guide. And a microscope. And some paper for the print.
Possibly, it might just be better to have a large supply of those military emergency rations on hand...
At our final class on Tuesday, the instructor brought enough Pine Mushrooms for everyone to be able to take one home. Pine mushrooms, also know as Tricholomata magnivelare, are a highly sought after delicacy. They call them Matsutake in Japan where good specimens will fetch $100 each. One of their distinct identifying features is their smell. We spent a lot of time smelling mushrooms in this class, it was a lot like wine tasting that way; people trying to come up with crazy adjectives that describe a particular mushroom. Some just smelled earthy and mushroomy, but some really have a surprising smell. One smelled like pears. The Matsutake smells just like Cinnamon Red Hots. I picked one that looked like it would make a good spore print, and also had a good strong smell. It wasn't a perfect shape though, so my instructor said it was probably only worth $50.
Behold, the $50 mushroom and its spore print. The instructor told us to make a soup using chicken broth and shave some thin slices of Matsutake into it. I did this today, and I can report that it was pretty good. It was so good in fact that I was going to save half for Peter when he came home from school today, but I ended up eating it all myself instead. His loss. I was surprised it tasted so good, because I used some home made chicken broth I had in the freezer, and I had put quite a lot of savory and parsley into it when I made it, so I really just expected it to taste like chicken broth. But the mushroom gave it a really unusual flavour which I can only describe as like miso, only earthier. The slivers of mushroom too had a texture similar to an oyster mushroom, like a firm tofu. It lost all its cinnamon qualities, but the soup itself had a hint of paprika.