Tools of the Trade

The picture shows the tools I most frequently use when mushroom foraging. The knife and basket are essential. A knife cuts the mushroom free from the ground and prevents dirt from being collected and messing up your harvest. The basket is a nice device for carrying your harvest, and keeps your collection fresh. Additionally, spores may drop onto the ground through the basket weaving creating opportunities for future collecting. My basket was locally made using strips of White Oak.

The camera is a small Olympus digital with a decent f1.8 lens, able to catch a lot of light in the dark forest. You may notice the tissue paper taped over the flash. This helps to diffuse the light when taking close-ups while using the flash. The tripod is a small Manfrotto model 709B. Tripods are essential in low light conditions, plus they're indispensable when taking multiple exposures for use in high dynamic range photography.

The field guidebooks are regional guides to mushrooms commonly found in the area where I forage, or as a source of recipes and food preparation. The Internet can be useful for assisting in identification, and as a source for recipes.

Orange Mock Oyster

Orange Mock Oyster, Phyllotopsis nidulans, is pretty to look at, but that's about all it has going for it. Field guidebooks describe it as having a disagreeable odor and taste, but I couldn't distinguish any bad smell or taste. Nevertheless, it is considered to have no culinary value. The top is noticeably fuzzy. After drying the gills are a vivid orange.

Galerina autumnalis - Deadly Galerina

If one is serious about collecting mushrooms it is important to learn which species are harmful. And, since deadly mushrooms are the worst kind of harmful it is wise to be able to recognize them. The picture above is what I've always assumed to be Galerina autumnalis, the Deadly Galerina. It is small, grows on dead wood, and about the same color as freshly fallen oak leaves; a warm brown. Spore print is rusty brown.

Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster Mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus, are always a big, flavorful treat when you find them. The top photo shows them growing on a fallen Tulip Poplar tree. The bottom photo shows them in the basket. You can see the light-lilac spore print left by overlapping caps. Some of the caps can reach considerable size. The largest shown are almost 5" across.

I recently saw a show on Virginia Public Television that showed mushrooms being used to make spring rolls. The recipe is quick and simple using rice paper, rice noodles, fresh green onions and peppers, mushrooms, sriraja and hoisin sauce. Since I had fresh Oyster Mushrooms, I decided to give them a try in the spring rolls. Here are some pictures:





Here's the recipe:
Tassi Pippert’s Dinner on the Run

Spring Rolls
Ingredients:
• Sliced green onions
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• Sesame oil
• 2 c. thinly sliced mushrooms
• Sautéed and raw sliced peppers (green, red, or yellow)
• Rice noodles
• 1 Tbs. sriracha (red chili paste)
• 1 Tbs. hoisin sauce
• Rice patties

Directions:
1. Add olive oil and a shot of sesame oil to a heated pan.
2. Add mushrooms and toss until the mushrooms are wilted.
3. While they are cooking, place rice noodles in boiling water for 30 seconds. Strain boiling water into bowl large enough to lay rice patties in later and place rice noodles in an ice cold water bath.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together equal parts of sriracha and hoisin sauce and drizzle 1 Tbs. of the mixture over mushrooms. Toss together.
5. Take rice patties one at a time and cover them completely in the strained boiled water. Lay flat on a flat.
6. Squeeze water out of a fistful of rice noodles and lay on lower third of a rice patty.
7. Add some sautéed and raw pepper slices, mushrooms and, green onion.
8. Roll patty over once. Roll over sides like wrapping a present. Finish rolling the rest.
9. Slice diagonally across center and plate with remaining sauce. Sprinkle green onions over for garnish.

Blewits

Fellow workers at the winery found several nice mushrooms and brought them for me to see. I was most impressed by the Blewits, Lepista nuda (=Clitocybe nuda). Their haul also included some beautiful and large Amanita muscaria var. formosa, for which they expressed an unusually strong and suspicious interest.

Anyway, they were happy to give me the Blewits, and I was very happy to accept. Not having a comfortable amount of experience with Blewits, I did the mandatory spore print to distinguish from possibly poisonous Cortinarius. A light pink spore print was confirmation enough for me, and into the frying pan they went. I will use the opportunity to forage for more this weekend. The carpet of falling leaves is growing thick so they may be difficult to find.

Agaricus campestris

One of the all time most prized and collected of wild mushrooms, the Meadow Mushroom, Agaricus campestris, is usually found in open grassy fields. It has a low, squat stature and chocolate-brown spores. We find it in the rows in the vineyard where I work. It is frequently found late summer and fall after a rain in areas where the grass is cut very short.

We use a flail mower in the vineyard which cuts and pulverizes grass to dirt level, allowing the light cream-colored caps to be very visible when they begin to grow. The physical mixing of grass and dirt by the flail mower probably assists in the growth and spread of A. campestris.

This is a close relative of the button mushrooms and Portabellas you find at the grocers. However, the flavor of the Meadow Mushroom is very rich and much superior to the varieties available in the store. Given favorable conditions, you sometimes find A. campestris in great abundance, in quantities that can fill baskets and bags.

Grifola fo' breakfast

Almost 2" of rain and drizzle in the Shenandoah Valley over the last 4 days has improved the mushroom situation. I hope to post some photos over the next couple days of things I find this late in the season. Freeze warning tonight, but weather should warm afterward. I'll start off the current round of findings with what I had for breakfast this morning:



This is a toasted bagel w/Grifola frondosa and white cheddar cheese. "Maitake" as the mushroom is known in grocery stores is touted for its health benefits and somewhat nutty aroma. Wild specimens are usually very meaty and flavorful. The mushroom was pulled apart and fried with butter until slightly crispy. White cheddar cheese was mixed with the salted, fried mushrooms, put on top of the bagel and microwaved to melt the cheese. This holds the topping on the bagel. Breakfast was delicious.



This is the same G. frondosa but the mushroom was marinated in cabernet sauvignon *juice* and soy sauce. The marinated mushrooms and marinade were fried w/onions in olive oil and a couple drops sesame oil, and a dash of red pepper. Rice was added to soak up the excess marinade and give bulk to the meal.



This is the G. frondosa, or Hen of the Woods, or Maitake growing next to what I assume is an oak stump. In my experience it is usually more gray in color. This one was various shades of dark brown. The dull, dark brown color usually is indicative of age, but this one was fresh and tender. The caps were very thick and dense, more like thick lobes, making the mushroom feel heavy for its size, a couple pounds at least.

Lycoperdon pyriforme

Lycoperdon pyriforme is a small, pear shaped puffball commonly found growing on fallen trees. It is edible when the interior is pure white, but not especially flavorful. I plan to to cut it into cubes and marinate it in a balsamic-based marinade to give it some flavor, then eat it with rice.

Hygrocybe species

This brilliant red Hygrocybe caught my eye from some distance. I thought it might have been a brightly colored fallen leaf, but because it was next to a spring I decided to check it out. It is relatively large for a Hygrocybe. There are several bright red Hygrocybes. The orange cap-margin is distinctive. The distant, decurrent gills suggest H. appalachianensis. Reportedly edible but tasteless.

Laetiporus sulphureus

Pickings are still slim in and around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Lack of significant rain has reduced the mushroom harvest to almost nothing. I did find the showy Chicken of the Woods, Laetiporus sulphureus. A good edible when fresh, soft and moist, the above was pass its prime. It had reached inedible maturity, dry and tough. This species of Laetiporus is characterized by a sulfur-yellow fertile surface seen on the underside in the photo.

Gymnopilus luteus

One of the so called "magic mushroom" species, Gymnopilus luteus is found in hardwood forests of the eastern United States. Young specimens are bright yellow, gaining orange tones as they age. Spores are rusty brown and flesh is bitter. These were found growing from the buried remains of an oak stump. This mushroom is often included under the species group of G. junonius (=G. spectabilus), or Big Laughing Jim Mushroom. The photograph was taken under the rich colors of an evening sky after sunset.

Basket Pic July 30, 2009

Went into the forest with my son to pick some mushrooms. I had picked a few the previous evening, so I knew the pickings were good. High summer means bugs, so it is best to harvest soon after a rain. The basket contains Golden Chanterelles, and various Boletes and Lactarius. The day before included what you see here, plus some Beefsteak Polypore. I need to cook and eat these tonight, as tomorrow we're headed to coastal North Carolina. In NC we'll be digging clams and netting shrimp. Summer is bountiful.

Home Fried Laetiporus for Breakfast

I have lots of Laetiporus cincinnatus in the 'fridge. Some of it was "dirty" with dirt and plant material included into the mushroom as it grew. I marinated the dirty batch, and include it on salads and linguine w/clams. The "clean" portion is exactly that; clean, only pure mushroom.

This morning for breakfast, I decided to fry the clean Laetiporus with onions in olive oil. I did not go light with the oil. I liberally coated the bottom of the small iron skillet, knowing the mushrooms would soak up most of it. The home fry consisted of equal parts onion, mushroom and potato. We ran out of table salt, so I drizzled a small amount of soy sauce over the batch.

Eaten while still very warm, the dish was beyond scrumptious. The onions were allowed to cook for awhile before adding the mushrooms. The mushrooms soaked up the sweet, onion-flavored oil. Medium-high heat gave everything a delicious brown glaze. This dish was so good, I'll make some for the wife this evening. I know she'll love it.

Summer Harvest Begins

I installed a new hard drive and reinstalled lost software onto my ailing computer. It is again humming at top proficiency. So, as a kind of inaugural post, I will show what's growing in my front yard as the summer season begins:


This is Lactarius camphoratus, the Aromatic Milk Cap. It is very aromatic and used to add a spicy, curry-like or maple syrup flavor to dishes. The aroma becomes more intense after drying, afterward the mushroom is ground and used as a spice. This is very similar to the Candy Cap found in the western U.S. Some have argued with me that Candy Caps (L. rubidus) are not found in the east, but this thing comes extremely close to the revered mushroom of the west.



This is Craterellus fallax, the Black Trumpet. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of these coming up, scattered around the oaks in my front yard. They are delicious and dry well, to be used in dishes at a later time.



Here are the Aromatic Milk Caps and Black Trumpets together in my mushroom basket. These were gathered quickly in the early evening on the day I found them. If the rest of the summer is as fruitful as this portends, I'll spend many a happy hour gathering.

Apologies

This is to inform blog followers that my home computer suffered a primary hard drive failure. I may have lost everything; photos, photo editing software, etc. I am in the process of getting a new hard drive and operating system and recovery software. I'm having withdrawal from my photo editing programs, which I hope to use to bring mushroom photos to the blog. When I get things going again, you'll see the photos get furiously posted.

More Early Season Stuff

These pop up in the front yard in the same spot almost every spring. It has a noticeable radish odor when crushed, which is usually characteristic of Hebeloma rather than Inocybe. But, the cap surface is dry and fibrillose rather than viscid, which is more like Inocybe. The dark, broad umbo is distinguishing. Neither genus offers good edibles as far as I know. Poisonous mushrooms are common in each genus.

Early Find ID Request

Critters were digging holes in the soil in the front yard. This is in the forest, and a large oak is near where I was finding the holes. Looking into a hole, I saw something light-colored, 3" or 4" down in the darker soil. I retrieved a small (~10mm), spherical object that looked like it had been broken open.

The peridium was hard with small, regular bumps (kinda like a basketball, I had to use a loupe to see them). The gleba was light-gray and pasty. On drying the gleba became powdery. Couldn't detect any odor. The taste is moldy. ID suggestions are welcome.

No suggestions as of yet (Apr. 11). I'm gonna hazard a guess; Leucogaster? This guess is based on the white mature spore mass, and the hard, rind-like skin/peridium. Animals (squirrels?) are still digging fresh holes where I found the first specimen. All the holes are concentrated in a circular area about 5' in diameter, with tighter clusters of holes within this space. I'll try to find another specimen, today or tomorrow. This being Easter weekend.

WTF? ID Request for Early Finds

These were found growing around the trunk of a standing dead pine tree. They appear widely-spaced around the trunk, not clustered. Average size is about an inch, some bigger some smaller. The golden-orange color attracted my attention.

The skin or peridium is very smooth, somewhat shiny, thick and tough. Initial appearance resembles a balloon being squeezed out under pressure from fissures in the tree bark. It resisted being cut with a sharp knife. Taste is bitter, more so than other puffballs I've tasted. On slicing, I was surprised to find it hollow. I will have to check others to see if they too are hollow. IDs are welcome.

A comment to this post suggests this is actually a polypore, Cryptoporus volvatus! If the chance arises, I'll return to the tree to see if the mushrooms have matured into a form more resembling a polypore.

Early Season Finds

Tremella lutescens, Witch's Butter


Lenzites betulina

Took a stroll in the woods to see what's up. It's still early in the season and not unusual for night temperatures to dip down to freezing. The top photo is Tremella lutescens (= T. mesenterica). It is edible but tasteless. I've heard some use it in soups. You usually find it on dead wood in damp weather.

Thanks to the 1st comment ever to this blog, the bottom picture is identified as Lenzites betulina. L. betulina is actually a Polypore, but it has gills as seen in the picture. Tough as shoe-leather and just as edible, some research indicates possible medicinal uses (antitumor, immunosuppressive). Might be able to grind and use in a tea?

Where I Forage

Above is a radar topographical image (courtesy of NASA/JPL) of the region where I forage for mushrooms. Fort Valley runs diagonally from the bottom left to the top right across the middle of the image.

Passage Creek is the drainage basin for Fort Valley. "The Fort" is bordered by the roughly parallel ridges of Massanutten Mountain. The North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River can be seen meandering along the base of Massanutten Mountain on either side. Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains are in the bottom right corner.

Luray, Edinburg and Woodstock, Virginia are towns found in the region pictured. Interstate 81 runs through Shenandoah Valley, on the left side of the image. Most of Massanutten Mountain is forest, and is a good place to find mushrooms.