The Idea
Now, in present-day Ur mushrooms are nothing more than little things you grow because you have to - y'know, for those recipes that demand them in order to be finished. Well, with this idea you will actually want to grow them in your crop gardens for a special attribute, as using any sort of Grinder will cause these innocent things to be crushed into a fine powder, and with Intermediate Admixing, you can transform the base powder using various arcane elements (a.k.a different combos of Red, Green, Blue, and Shiny elements using your handy-dandy Alchemy skill) in order to "season" them into all sorts of tool and food enchanting goodness.
The Enchantments
Let's say that all 'basic' tools and bought foods from Meal Vendors will only have one "slot"; a space to use your refined Mushroom Powder in order to give it a special buff (Super-Shiny Mushroom Powder giving your Pick 10% shaved off mining time, wondrous for impatient miners, or perhaps that Blue-Green Mushroom Powder letting your Watering Can or Shovel give you +2 to all of your rewards you get from using that item (mood and harvest) plus all different sorts of nifty combinations for you to test out on your food to achieve different buffs, like Spicy-Red Mushroom Powder on any ordinary meal to achieve Hearty Food status, though only half the time of the real thing), while crafted tools and cooked meals will have TWO slots for extra enchantment power! Plus, if you sprinkle your powder on food, a consumable, it lasts for three times on a stack (losing it's power to enchant a tool as well, obviously) as you don't need much Powder to give something you'll eat special effects.
The Skills
While you can make limited forms of watered-down powders with just your basic Alchemy and Intermediate Admixing skills, you can achieve practical nirvana by learning Powderization I, which guarantees you won't fail while decreasing the moderate energy cost to give your crushed mushrooms some flair, and then the apex arrives with Powderization II which halves the needed energy and has a chance of creating a Super Powder, a very expensive and efficient pile of elements and remnants of mushrooms that increases the payout of the original buff by 20% percent! Anyone up for some mining with that Pick now that it can mine like a Giant would?
The Effects
With enchantments that are bound to food products and tools, it will give more variety to Auctions and with home-made products having two slots instead of one, the incentive to make your own tools and cook your own food will be a lot higher while increasing the want for Tinkering, Cooking, and Alchemy skills a lot more than it is at the moment.
The Closing
In short, I am totally open to debate about this idea and although this is one hefty post, it's all about crushing mushrooms and giving your tools and food some new values along the way.