As far back as documentary sources go, I come from China or Egypt and I have attracted men for my good taste while my peers seduced them for the hallucinogenic properties of my peers or frightened them for their toxicity. The first descriptions in European languages date back to the Greek Theophrastus (371-288 BC) who observed that mushrooms (mykes) grow from the roots of oak trees and that the Greeks knew how to make us grow on manure.
From my part, I have had some many names since I am eaten by human beings that I can hardly remember them all: Agaricus bisporus, common mushroom, white mushroom, button mushroom, cultivated mushroom, table mushroom, champignon (French for mushroom), swiss brown mushroom, roman brown mushroom, Italian brown mushroom, cremini mushroom, chestnut mushroom or commonly Portobello mushroom. These names show that I traveled a lot and that my relations with the human kind are broad and last long almost like a pagan deity. .
If you ask me if I have a favorite name : yes, I have one because it shows the ability of men to grow and root a business from the smallest discovery. This name is Champignon de Paris and tells my link with the French scientific community. As early as 1670, La Quintinie, King Louis XIV's gardener, began cultivating mushrooms on beds in the open air at Versailles. The technique of growing mushrooms outdoors was first mentioned in 1707 in a treatise by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, although it was not yet perfected. In 1810, the market gardener Chambry grows my kind in quarries in the south of the capital, to protect them from the vagaries of the climate. He had the idea of humidifying and aerating the layers by ventilating the growing sites. In 1893, the Pasteur Institute gave a boost to this production by recommending the sterilization of the production environment. At the end of the 19th century, more than 300 producers cultivated me for a total of one thousand tons annually in 1875. Three million baskets were delivered to the Halles de Paris. It was produced in the suburbs, but also in Paris until 1895 when the construction of the metro put an end to its cultivation in the abandoned quarries in the south of Paris. Although I am now industrially cultivated all over the world, I keep the nostalgia of this time during which the human inventiveness used its environment instead of enslaving it. That's why you know today which name I prefer.
