Enoki (Flammulina velutipes) is the slender, ivory-white, long-stemmed mushroom sold in tight, brush-like clusters and added at the very end of East-Asian soups, hotpots and salads. The pale, noodle-like form on supermarket shelves is a cultivated freak of light deprivation: grown in the dark in bottles of carbon dioxide-rich air, the fungus stretches into a thicket of long thin stalks with tiny button caps. Its wild self is unrecognisably different — a short, sticky, orange-brown winter mushroom of broadleaf stumps. Mild and faintly fruity-savoury with a crisp, almost crunchy bite, enoki is prized for texture as much as flavour.