Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

Mushrooms are generally not offered, but there is no prohibition, there is no harm in them. (letter to Harer Nama, LA, 1 Dec 1968)

Because mushrooms grow in a filthy place, they are not usually offered to Krishna. (letter to Himavati, Delhi, 17 Nov 1971)

In dharma sastras mushrooms are not fit for dvijas to eat.

Ayurveda says mushrooms are in the mode of ignorance and that is explained because they take more energy to digest than the actual energy they give, so they deplete energy, +ignorance.

[quote][cite] VEDA:[/cite]Mushrooms are generally not offered, but there is no prohibition, there is no harm in them. (letter to Harer Nama, LA, 1 Dec 1968)

Because mushrooms grow in a filthy place, they are not usually offered to Krishna. (letter to Himavati, Delhi, 17 Nov 1971)

[/quote]

So it is permissable to offer mushrooms grown in a clean place (according to the above quotes).

If your home standard is low, maybe.

Also, these quotes are from early ISKCON times - later Prabhupada increased the arcana standards.

Did he approve the use in Govindas restaurants?

I personally dont eat them but from the reports, Srila Prabhupada allowed them to be cooked and offered to the Deities in NV...I dont know that this is neccessarily a low standard Veda.

I havent found those quotes related to NV in Vedabase so I cant comment. Itd require to hear witnesses and see the context.

Correction it was Nouvelle Mayapur in France....here is the exchange for those who are interested:

Malati devi: "And, what about mushrooms? We dont offer them to the (temple) Deities. However, in France, at the Nouvelle Mayapur Chateau (perhaps Kanti will recall this), they found very exotic expensive type of mushroom known as truffles on the property, and the devotees wondered about it."

Kanti devi: "yes, I do recall that, because I started making cream of mushroom soup for the devotees. We had mushroom pizza, mushroom rice, mushroom pakoras, so many mushrooms. There was one French devotee who would bring in crates full that he collected in the forest.
Naturally the devotees (Bhagavan dasa specifically) asked Srila Prabhupada before we did anything with them. The mushrooms were c'e8pes, (not truffles) a large mushroom that grows in the forest, and we had thousands of them. Srila Prabhupada said that Lord Caitanya ate mushrooms when he was travelling in the Jarikhanda Forest, and we could as well. We did not have Radha Krishna Deities at that time, we had a Pancha Tattva altar and Srila Prabhupada said they were offerable to (on the altar to the sacred deity forms of) Pancha Tatva, so we did cook and offer them."

why bother? i dont eat them but are they so tasty that you cant live without them?
maybe i should try some...hmmmm

About two weeks after I started reading Bhagavad-gita As It Is, I was in Olympia, WA, practicing meditation in a watershed preserve. (I had just moved to Olympia intending to live as a yogi in the Olympic National Forest, but I found B.g. first and changed my plans as a result.) After a while I got a thought about shaggy parasol mushrooms, and when I opened my eyes there was a patch of big ones in front of me. I hadnt noticed them when I sat down. I picked several and sauteed them in butter later that day. They were very delicious, although I was never one to like mushrooms.