Script: https://tcmpodcast.me/episode-23-healing-with-mushrooms-shiitake/

Fungi have played an important role in Chinese culture for perhaps 7,000 years. Over the millennia, common mushrooms such as the wood ear and jelly fungus have been important food items. Various simple fungi were also utilized to make fermented food products such as  wine, vinegar, soy sauce, and pickled vegetables. Fungi were utilized for their healing properties in China and popularized over centuries in South-East Asia as well.  

The use of fungi such as hoelen, caterpillar fungus, and ergot in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was also recorded in the TCM literature. The oldest official Chinese list of medicinal substances comes from the Classic of the Materia Medica (Shennong Bencaojing 神農本草經) written between about 206 BC and 220 AD,  and the Mingyi bielu (Chin.名醫別錄). It contains 365 medicinal substances, and the list includes several mushroom species used for medicinal purposes.

Earlier mention of the use of fungi in medicine outside of the main classics occurred as early as 26 B.C. in the “Book of Songs,”(Chin. Shijing 诗经) a compilation of folk-songs and poems. Shitake was included in a work on herbal medicine first in 1209 in the Records of Longquan County.

Probably the most famous of all works on Chinese materia medica is the monumental Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao gangmu本草綱目), which was compiled by Li Shizhen (Chin. 李时珍) and published in 1578 in Nanjing three years after he died. This enormous endeavour took Li Shizhen 27 years and includes 1,892 species of animal, herbal, and mineral drugs, including 1,100 illustrations and 11,000 prescriptions...

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