ABSTRACT
Mushroom is a macrofungus with a distinctive fruiting body, which can be either epigenous or hypogenous, and is large enough to be seen with the naked eye and to be picked by hand (Chang and Miles, 1992). History of mushrooms can be traced back to 300 million years ago (Editorial, 1997). In ancient times, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and Mexicans treated mushrooms as a delicacy, prized them for their purported therapeutic values, and in some cases, prized them as treasures in religious rites (Chang, 2006). The Egyptians believed that mushroom was a gift from God, while the ancient Romans called them a “divine food,” and the Chinese considered them “the elixir of life” (Smith et al., 2002). There are more than 2000 species of mushroom existing in nature that are considered as edible mushrooms. Among the edible mushrooms, about 25 species are widely accepted as food, and 10 species of these are reaching the industrial scale of production. A few species have a long history of application in the eld of medicine (mainly in Asian countries, especially in China) (Smith et al., 2002; Chang, 2006; Barros et al., 2007). The term “mushroom”
11.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 235 11.2 Quality Changes during Drying ................................................................... 237 11.3 Pretreatments Prior to Drying ...................................................................... 238 11.4 Drying of White Button Mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) ...........................240
