Mushroom Hunting

Mushroom hunting appeals to me for a bunch of reasons. There is a hunter gatherer inside of all of us and mushroom hunting stirs this primordial urge. As a result, hunting for them is probably more fun than eating them. In fact hunting for them starts to replace things you know you should be doing and edging into, and finally taking over other activities. Any trip outside can be taken over by mushroom hunting. Leaving the house without a plastic bag in your pocket is liable to mean your pockets will become filled with edible fungus.

Many times Kris and I have both left the barn to grab something in the yard and been gone for an hour and returned with more mushrooms. This started innocently enough. I found the mushroom book in a box of old books I was going through and brought it down stairs. There are a lot of interesting mushrooms growing in the woods and I thought it would be fun to know what some were. So we went for a walk out back and took the mushroom book. At first we tried to identify the more distinctive or any we found interesting for one reason or another.

After awhile we took notice of the coral mushrooms you see in the pictures. As we read about them and one of the lines in the discription in bold print said simply EDIBILITY: Choice.

Well, we looked up everything we could find that might be similar and couldn't find anything that was poisonous. Still. everything you have ever learned about wild mushrooms is framed in the possibility of instant death. So after much research and trying to make sure the worst that could happen was we wouldn't like them, we cooked up a few. They smelled OK and so we ate a small amount and went to bed and waited for something to happen. I read and tried to distract myself from indigestion caused by the remote possibilty and therefore nagging fear I was going to be violently ill and then dead just shortly. Every stomach gurgle and gas bubble snapped my mind out of my book and back to this looming possibility. After a few hours with no ill effects, I drifted off to sleep and woke up in the morning alive and, amazingly, not sick.

Since they were ablsolutely delicious and apparently nonlethal, we floured and fried up a large batch in olive oil and butter. Wow, were they good ! Afterward, it occurred to me I may have not eaten enough yesterday to cross the threashold of a lethal dose but maybe I had today. More reading and pensive waiting proved this negative and we began mushroom hunting in earnest. Turns out this particular variety loves pine and fir forests and are in great abundance on our property. We spent many pleasant hours gathering large quantities of them. Collecting them is seductively fun. Oohh, look at this patch! Wow! Look at the size of this one.

Gradually, we began shirking activities we should have been doing to go hunt more mushrooms. The discovery that they dried easily and reconstituted beautifully in a few minutes of soaking now appealed to the winter storage instinct. Soon to the detriment of everything else we were in full mushroom collection and storage mode.

It occured to me that my friend Scott had mentioned he liked wild mushrooms and I called him and invited he and Gail over to share our discovery. After we showed him what they looked like, we took them out back and let them find some so they would able to do this at home. Scott mentioned that he had a secret tree that had oyster mushrooms on it. "Oyster mushrooms really are delicious" he offered. I acted casual but my mind went into overload. Another mushroom to look for!! After they left, Kris and I went through the mushroom book. Oyster mushrooms grow on hardwoods and are all over the US and the only mushroom that it could be mistaken for and was poisonous was located in Japan or Australia and the best part--EDIBILITY: Choice! We went looking immedialtely. We were definitely mushroom crazy, knew it but didn't care.

It took awhile but after a couple of weeks of searching, Kris spotted one while we were driving down an old road. We brought home some and did a spore sample and read and reread the description. These had to be it. So we tried them. Funny, it was no less nerve racking testing this mushroom. But, since I am typing now, I didn't die from the test. No and Scott was right. These are delicious too. We now have our own "secret trees". Thankfully, winter has caused us to get control of ourselves and we are trying to catch up on things around here. Still, I understand that Chantrelles start in early summer and the best part--EDIBILITY: Choice!