It's hard to overestimate the power of the unintentional plug for the produce that happens now and again on telly.
Viewers of the beeb 2 show The Restaurant will have been subtly influenced by the sublime cooking skills of top chef Raymond Blanc as he prepared a fricassee with fresh mushrooms.
His injunction to the contestants was to know their mushrooms.
Meanwhile that other top chef Gordon Ramsay was whisking up some scrambled eggs with truffle topping for the currently suspended chat show host Jonathon Ross.
The white alba truffle he was using cost £3K a kilo - pure white gold indeed.
Any mushroom related cooking by the top chefs on primetime television can only enhance the reputation of the mushrooms as an ingredient for everyone's mealtimes.
