Fungus Alert

When asked, chef Jimmy Mooney at Urbana quickly rattled off the mushrooms in his signature quesadilla as shiitake, portobello and cremini. Were they really harvested in the wild?

"It's just called that," Mooney explained. "It's not like somebody is out in the woods picking them. You caught me out there. But, mesclun salad [which means "field greens"] is grown too. Everything else on the menu is for real -- the Roquefort is Roquefort and the romaine lettuce is romaine."

When asked about her mushrooms, Habanero Blue chef and co-owner Diana Ramos also explained that "in France, you can find them, but not here." It was ditto at Mia Bella, where chef-owner Youssef Nafaa listed the mushrooms in his wonderful, light-melting strudel as "shiitake, button and portobello." He also admitted that they "are supposed to be wild," but the market can only supply "exotic mushrooms."

So when did farm-raised mushrooms become wild mushrooms? The perpetrators are still at large. One can only hope that the perps are as generous as Humpty Dumpty himself:

"'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.' "