Simbiosis in the Media
Press, television and recognition
Simbiosis in the media
Since 2014, what began as two hundred bags of oyster mushrooms sold by hand along the Salida a Celaya has become a reference point for the fungal kingdom in Mexico. From MasterChef to Modern Farmer, these are the outlets that have told our story.
Some projects explain themselves; others are only understood up close. Simbiosis has been chronicled by journalists, science communicators, culinary blogs and lifestyle magazines in Mexico and abroad — each from its own vantage point, yet all drawn to the same idea: that mushrooms can reconnect people with nature, with their culture, and with one another. Here we gather that coverage.
Video and television
MasterChef México
MasterClass on Mushrooms in Mexican Cuisine
Arif Towns Alonso was invited as an expert mycologist to give a MasterClass for MasterChef México, walking through the principal edible mushrooms, their culinary uses, their basic biology and their place in the Mexican gastronomic tradition.
Watch the MasterClass on YouTube → · Coverage in El Heraldo de México →
Eddy Warman de Noche
Arif Towns Alonso, biologist and mycologist, in conversation
Journalist Eddy Warman, with more than forty years of career behind him, invited Arif Towns Alonso — a graduate in Biology and a mycology specialist with over a decade of experience cultivating mushrooms — to talk about the fungal kingdom and the current issues surrounding the world of mushrooms in Mexico.
Print and digital press
SAVANT SMA — Feature story
The Mycelial Mind of San Miguel
San Miguel’s culture and lifestyle magazine published an in-depth feature on Arif and the Simbiosis universe: his childhood between Mexico City and the forests of the State of Mexico, where his Otomí neighbours taught him to recognise the coral-shaped mushrooms they called “patas de pollo”; his beginnings selling oyster mushrooms for fifty pesos along the Salida a Celaya; and the vision of Simbiosis as a living network of more than twenty-eight collaborators across Mexico.
Asked what decades of working with mushrooms have taught him, Arif answers that he has learned he knows nothing: the more he studies them, the more they astonish him. They are, he says, the beginning and the end of life.
Atención San Miguel — by Catherine Marenghi
Sacred Foods: The Magic of Mexican Mushrooms
A long-form essay by writer Catherine Marenghi on Mexico’s millennia-old relationship with mushrooms — from Maya mushroom stones to the present day — with Arif and Simbiosis as its narrative thread. The text gathers his first encounter with wild mushrooms at the age of ten in Huixquilucan, the ramaria or “patas de pollo” that shreds like meat, the book by Gastón Guzmán Huerta that awakened his vocation, and his view of fungi as an underground network: a kind of natural internet connecting the trees of the forest.
Published in Atención San Miguel. Portraits of Arif by Chloe Zola.
THIS magazine no.66 — Destination Weddings edition
Simbiosis in THIS Top Destinos
THIS magazine, from the Maizazul Creative Collective, devoted a space to Simbiosis in its issue no.66 — the Destination Weddings special — as a meeting point for chefs, artists, scientists and nature lovers in San Miguel de Allende. THIS and its sister magazine AVENUE (no.13) were presented at the Instituto Allende in March 2026. Photography by Jorge Alcalá; edited by Ulises Huerta Ortiz for Casa Maizazul.
Modern Farmer — USA
Meet the Modern Farmer
The prestigious US agricultural outlet published a profile of Arif documenting his beginnings as a grower and the vision that gave rise to Simbiosis.
Read on Modern Farmer →Local SMA Guide by Bendita
On the Cover: Arif’s Simbiosis
San Miguel’s most complete local guide put Simbiosis on its cover, with an in-depth interview on the project’s history, the tours and the fungal philosophy behind it.
Read on Local SMA Guide →Cupcakes & CrabLegs — by Susan York
The Mushroom King of SMA
Susan York’s influential culinary blog, read in more than 40 countries, devoted a long article to Arif and the first Simbiosis foraging tours.
Read on Cupcakes & CrabLegs →Atención San Miguel
The Saturday Community Soup
San Miguel’s oldest newspaper highlighted the “community mushroom soup” Arif prepares every Saturday outside Mercado Sano — pay what you can, community with sleeves rolled up.
Read on Atención →Don Day in SMA
Mycological Moments
Food chronicler Don Day documented in 2015 the ceps, porcini and morels that Simbiosis brought to San Miguel’s organic market, and visited the project’s oyster mushroom cultivation.
Read on Don Day in SMA →Lokkal SMA
Simbiosis on Lokkal
San Miguel de Allende’s cultural and community platform maintains the Simbiosis profile, described with a fungal image: like mycelium, an expanding network of mutually beneficial alliances.
See on Lokkal →Podcasts
Queendom of the Kitchen Table
Arif: All mushrooms are magic
On the podcast of Iliana Lanuza — a San Miguel sociotherapist and coach — Arif shares the story of Simbiosis and the enormous world contained within each small fungal life. A warm, unedited conversation from her kitchen table.
Entre Hongos
Two episodes with Arif
Arif talks about the fungal kingdom, Mexican mycological culture and the story of Simbiosis across two episodes of the Entre Hongos podcast.
Academic and cultural collaborations
Universidad de Celaya
Master classes and demonstrations on fungal gastronomy alongside Chef David Jahnke.
UAEH and the Rocabosque Fair
Academic and cultural appearances in Hidalgo, including the Rocabosque Fair — a meeting point between mycology, art and community.
@preguntalealbiologo
A special class with the science communication account explaining what symbiosis is from a biological standpoint — the concept that gives the project its name and its soul.
See on Instagram →Art and culture
Carlos Gunther Maier — Claroscuro Collection
Arif, “The Mushroom Man”
The renowned German-born photographer and filmmaker Carlos Gunther Maier portrayed Arif as The Mushroom Man within Claroscuro: El arte de la gastronomía — a collection of period portraits in the chiaroscuro technique, of light and shadow, with its subjects costumed in Renaissance dress. The piece pays homage to the gastronomic passion of a group of men and women from San Miguel de Allende, and forms part of the exclusive Casa Armida collection.
The Fungivore community
Beyond the press, Simbiosis is a living community. More than 4,700 people follow the project, and our WhatsApp community is the space where Fungivores share sightings, recipes, questions and news from the mycological world.
Join the Simbiosis Community on WhatsApp →
Follow us
- Instagram — @simbiosis_boutique
- Personal Instagram — @simbiosis_arif_t
- Facebook — Simbiosis The Mushroom Boutique
- TripAdvisor — Simbiosis The Mushroom Boutique
Discover the project the media write about
What the press narrates comes alive in every corner of Simbiosis. If you want to see it first-hand:
→ The story of Simbiosis — from two hundred bags of mushrooms to a living network
→ The Shrooms Bar & Deli — our gastronomic space at Mercado Sano
→ Foraging tours — the experience so many outlets have described
→ Chefs who have cooked with Simbiosis
→ Explore all Simbiosis products
Are you a journalist, a content creator, or do you have a collaboration in mind? Write to us at simbiosissanmiguel@gmail.com