Shiitake Mushrooms are delicious and apparently have medicinal properties too. Their scientific name is Lentinus Edodes.

Here's some webpages I ran across on them:

Recipes

• Asparagus and Shiitakae Soup - http://www.ebicom.net/kitchen/page/soup/shitake.htm
• http://www.mitobi.com/Shiitake_Recipes_home.html
• http://www.forestmushrooms.com/Web%20Folder/shiitake.html
• The Shitake Potatoe Pancakes sound good - http://www.efn.org/~sundance/Shitake.html

Medical

http://www.shiitake.net/UK.htm - Intro and index of Cancer Research UK's report on Medicinal Mushrooms (I couldn't find the page on their actual site). The section on Shiitake is at the end of http://sci.cancerresearchuk.org/labs/med_mush/final_pdfs/chapt3_a.pdf (a couple of pictures only) and mainly in http://sci.cancerresearchuk.org/labs/med_mush/final_pdfs/chapt3_b.pdf - to quote "This mushroom has been renowned in Japan and China for thousands of years both as a food and as a medicine. It has a most exotic and delicious taste and is a central part of many Oriental dishes and is increasingly being adopted in the West." These files have some great pictures too.

The best place to buy them in the UK is a Chinese supermarket - it's much cheaper than going to a more epicurean source.

These people sell various mushrooms - http://www.treeoflife-medicinals.com/mushrooms.phtml