Fall is for Fungus

Should have said fungi, as it sounds far more culinarily acceptable. In our most recent foray into foraging we hit the jackpot. We found six edibles, consuming four of them. The two rejects included one whose flavour is described in the field guide as “insipid” and the other requiring finicky cleaning.

 

The winners were, in order or size:

- a teensy puffball, pictured later.

- four little oyster mushrooms, sautéed in the pan of Angel Wings.

- the aforementioned Angel Wings, found along the length of a six foot rotting log, a pristine object in the dark forest.

 

 

- and the piece de resistance, a 1.5lb cauliflower mushroom, discovered just into the greenbelt area behind our friends’ seasonal home in a classy trailer park in the woods. I could smell it as soon as we left the car. I met a woman last year at the mushroom show, who found one double in size in the same general area. Where’s that, you ask? No can tell, the first rule of mushroom hunting. 

 

 

 
Did you notice the tiny puffball on the scale to the right of the big one? We cooked that one apart from the other to appreciate its true taste, a crispy skin with a full flavoured wild mushroom flavour. Sounds like a traditional description of wine, or more recently craft beer or chocolate.

 

The prize specimen was divided. The first night a half pound was sautéed in butter with garlic. The next in chicken with a Chardonnay cream sauce.

 

Comments

[Karen]

Wow! (What else is there to say?)

[Carolyn]

I came looking for a way to get your herringbone rib scarf pattern (haven't know WHAT to do with my Wool Clasica Manos but I love this scarf. Found a great looking recipe if I could manage to find amazing mushrooms as you did -- although I will save it for mushrooms I purchase from the Mushroom Capital of the World, Chester County, PA, where they produce a million pounds of mushrooms a day. For those of us not brave enough to find them in nature ourselves, they sell mushrooms the day they were picked -- delicious!

Thank you for sharing your pattern.

[Kristen Chambers]

Oh yum! Don't think I'll ever forage, but we get some delicious mushrooms varieties at the farmers market.