I bought some portabello mushrooms for salad-making this week. The really huge brown caps, usually cut up in strips, and prized for a texture that is almost meat-like.

I had read that such mushies are a good source of vegetal musks, usable in perfume, substitutes for animal musks. Some online perfume supply stores, in fact, sell essence of mushrooms. I had always thought SHALIMAR in the EDP has a curiously mushroom-like hint in its makeup. I could always detect it in the crook of my arm. Quite pleasant.

But, a musk from these portabellos? Well... let me just say... it's TRUE. these big caps yield a very strong animal-like musk smell, quite different from the tender little earth-funk of your usual small salad/cooking mushrooms.

I won't go into detail except to say it's a smell Napoleon would've found favor with....

I've noted a musky smell in certain mushrooms...and while I don't normally like musky smells...I DO like that one.
I also think I can remember a fragrance I wore...which had a mushroom "accord", but for the life of me, I can't remember what that was!
I believe I had read that certain fragrances I've enjoyed, which had musky bases, were the "vegetal musk".
I believe Pink Sugar has that kind of musk in it...and I smell it and enjoy it...which isn't the case with most animalic musks, which either make me ill or which I can't smell at all.
Weird stuff.

I may throw away these portabellos. They're just too stinky. So much for my refined, gourmet palate!

Did you know that you can fry them and make a vegetarian "hamburger"?

I didn't know that! But I don't doubt it, as their texture is so meaty... But the pong these things give off! Down the dispose-all they go, I'm afraid...

I'm a gigglin