Shiitake Shiitake The shiitake (; Lentinula edodes) is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is cultivated and consumed in many Asian countries. It is considered a medicinal mushroom in some forms of traditional medicine. The fungus was first described scientifically as "Agaricus edodes" by Miles Joseph Berkeley in 1877. It was placed in the genus "Lentinula" by David Pegler in 1976. The fungus has acquired an extensive synonymy in its taxonomic history: The mushroom's Japanese name is composed of , for the tree "Castanopsis cuspidata" that provides the dead logs on which it is typically cultivated, and . The
What Work Is sometimes been criticized for leaning too hard on his blue-collar "bona fides". The critic Adam Kirsch, writing in "The Times Book Review" in 1999, noted, accurately enough, that “in his autobiographical essays he goes out of his way to tell us that he is essentially a peasant.” David Baker, writing about "What Work Is" (1991) in the "Kenyon Review", said Levine has “one of our most resonant voices of social conviction and witness, and he speaks with a powerful clarity…What Work Is may be one of the most important books of poetry of our time. Poem after poem confronts the