Deer hunting, mushroom finding

I'm away from home this week for my first deer hunt. I have been less than successful in that endeavor but spending so much time in the soggy late autumn woods has provided ample new mushrooms. I'm writing this on my phone as well as all the pics are also from my phone so apologies for the quality and formatting.

The first two photos are the gorgeous and tiny Schizophyllum commune. I was so excited to find them that I WHOOPED out loud. Good thing I was just wandering trying to drive out hiding deer. I've only seen photos of them and they're so striking. I didn't have my DSLR but my phone did pretty well.

Third photo is Tremella mesenterica or Witch's Butter. It is a jelly fungus and is apparently edible if that's the kind of thing you'd like to put in your mouth.

The fourth photo is a large nifty bracket fungus called Fomitopsis ochracea.

Fifth is a nifty one called Fomes fomentarius aka Hoof fungus or Tinder fungus. This one is nifty because it was one of two mushrooms, along with Piptoporus betulinus (birch polypore), found in the pouch of the 4000 year old "Ötzi the Iceman". It was thought to have been used for tinder.

The last photo is a tiny fungus called Phleogena faginea, the Fenugreek Stalkball. Apparently, it smells like fenugreek. I didn't sniff it but I also have no idea what fenugreek smells like so not sure if that would have aided in my ID.

I'll be back out there tomorrow and next week for the deer, if there's any left. I promise I'll spare you gorey hunting photos but I may have more shrooms to share!

Late harvest shrooms

Ok, I lied. I couldn't close shop for the winter without mentioning my new favorite mushroom Flammulina velutipes, aka, Enokitake, aka Enoki, aka winter mushroom, aka velvet foot.
I found a small dried out bunch a few weeks ago, and after confident ID, I fried it up for a first taste. It's a good idea to try a small amount of new mushrooms fried in a bit of butter and/or oil. This will give you a good idea of the flavor while also testing for any personal sensitivities to new species. The winter mushroom has this really (really) great nutty umami flavor. I threw the rest of that small harvest into a homemade miso soup. The absolute best flavor of any mushroom I've tried yet!

I was out a couple days ago on the lookout for Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa) and was super excited to see this big splash of orange off the trail. F. vuletipes likes the colder fall temps and is usually peeking out of knotholes or from behind peeling bark. The caps are sticky when fresh and the stems turn fuzzy black in mature specimens (thus the velvet foot name). They have a white spore print and are always found in clusters growing on wood, sometimes very large groups. They can even be found growing throughout the winter if you're lucky enough.

velvet feet

stock photo

Enokitake is the name for those long, skinny, tiny capped, white mushrooms commonly found in Asian cuisine. This is actually the same species, a cultivated form of F. vetulipes. It is grown in darkness in tall jars to bleach it and stretch out the stems creating a form unrecognizable compared to the wild specimens





As I was harvesting the large clump above, a big piece of bark peeled back and revealed these little babies.  I now see how the popular cultivated form must have began. I'll probably go back to check on these little ones in a few days. This tree was very popular!

Wild Enokitake!

I also found my first Wood Ears (Auricularia auricula). These are also an edible commonly found in asian cuisine. They are a little creepy, some resembling their namesake a tad too much for my taste. I thought briefly about stringing them as a necklace for Halloween, we'll see.  They have little flavor but give a great chewy texture for soups and other dishes. Warning: DO NOT pan fry these. They inflate and explode like little balloons. I, of course, had to try it when I heard that, so trust me they really POP!

Hello?...

...Is it me you're looking for?

Muh muh muh, myy Maitake! Wooo!

Look close and you can see the white spores on the leaf litter.
No doubt on this ID.

Here in sw PA, we've had little luck with our Grifola Frondosa (aka Hen of the Woods, aka Sheepshead, aka Maitake) crop so far. Hopefully they're just being shy, there may be a bit more time in the season. They like the cooler fall temps so I decided to travel about an hour north to give me a slightly better edge. During my hike at the Hell's hollow section of McConnells Mills State Park, I found a nice flush of Blewits (Clitocybe nuda). They get harder to spot as fall progresses and covers the forest floor.

I'm always happy to I bring a bag of blewits home but I was focused like a laser beam on the oaks. Every oak tree spotted, I scanned the foot looking for that telltale greyish ball of feathers. Grifola frondosa love oaks, especially old ones with dead spots or fallen wood nearby. They also like more open areas that get more sunlight. Sometimes you can find them in yards or well maintained parks but always under a dead/dying tree, usually oaks but sometimes maple.

I usually wander well off trail when mushrooming because the best mushrooms are sneaky ninjas. This time I had just returned to the trail after deep wandering, turned my head and there it was growing from the dead side of an old oak. I wish I had taken a picture from where I spotted it because they are masters of camouflage. This big gal was about the size of a basketball and weighed in at around 10lbs. It wouldn't even fit in my big basket so I had to take my tshirt off and rig up a bag for it with a carabiner. Luckily I was wearing a hoodie as well, otherwise I would have looked like a crazy shirtless hillbilly with a head in a bag wandering out of the woods. It still kind of looked strange so I made a point to show off my prize to curious hikers.

What a beauty! Plump, perfect, and prime.

My wife, who has gracefully, if unenthusiastically, humored my increasingly obsessive mushroom hobby, was like, "What are you going to do with that huge thing?" I said, "Lots of things! You just wait." After cleaning (read: evicting the salamander and beetles) and chopping, I immediately tossed some in olive oil, thyme, and rosemary, threw it in the oven until it was golden and crispy, and served her (and my) first Hen of the Woods. It was so delicious, she finally (sort of) understands the mushroom love. I also made the 3Foragers Hen of the Woods Jerky and she said it was "the best jerky I have ever had, hands down." I ended up making most of the thing it into jerky because the family demanded more. Fingers crossed that I find more this week closer to home, I'll need a steady supply to get us through winter until morel season.


I was at a local supermarket today and happened by the "fresh" mushroom section. They actually have Maitake (aka Hen of the Woods, aka Sheepshead, aka Grifola frondosa) right now or at least something resembling and labeled as "Maitake". As you can see in the photo below, at $15/lb, it's pretty steep for a crusty skinny little thing. Even at a softball sized clump, it's so thin and whispy, calling it a 1/2 pound is generous. So,basically, I'm saying learn your mushrooms and GET TO THE WOODS!

Speaking of morel season, unless something exciting happens (like stumbling upon the unheard of southern Pennsylvania Matsutake patch) you'll likely not hear from me until you see a post with a giant basket bursting with morels in the springtime. Until then, I bid you, happy hunting!

That's no moon! It's a mushroom!

Last week was apparently giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea, season in SW PA. I had no luck myself but I have great friends that were very generous with their own harvests and grow sites.

These monstrous things are easy to mistake for a lost soccer ball or white balloon in the woods. I saw several that were softball sized and a couple reaching beyond basketball size. They look like a small moon plummeted to earth, some are smooth and round but most are oblong with little craters on the surface.

When harvesting look for pure white inside, toss (or better yet, kick!) any yellowing, green or brown ones. Don't worry about washing the dirty outside, the skin peels off nicely like it's a fancy cheese wheel. Freeze or dehydrate what you don't eat immediately, it won't keep more than a day or so on the counter or in the fridge.

These are great edibles, I've read that you can substitute them for tofu or even eggplant in some dishes. I'll be trying this today in my mushroom miso.
I went with the pizza crust recipe but I screwed it up and my kids were less than pleased. (FYI: frying them is no substitute for grilling them...yeah, I do alright but I'm no chef) They need to have a very well-done toasting (almost burnt) with very little oil for it to work. Otherwise, you are piling cheese on mush. The recipe says to grill them but I didn't want to mess with charcoal. So for the second attempt I simply lightly brushed the cast iron with oil, got it screaming hot and flipped the slice over and over (and over) until it was sufficiently crusty. It was actually pretty great!

Recent nifty shrooms

Clitocybe nuda "Blewit"

Clavariadelphus unicolor

This gorgeous purple mushroom is currently all over the woods. I dare you to go into the woods for an hour and not find a Blewit. There are several [arguably] toxic lookalikes. The genus Cortinarius has a few purple mushrooms that grow in the same areas in the same season. To differentiate you need only to set a cap on a sheet of paper and wait until you see a rosy pink spore print, Corts are dark rusty brown. Also, if you see a wispy cobwebby covering over the gills or a remnants on the stem it's surely a Cortinarius. I've been told by knowledgeable people that all purple Corts are edible just not palatable, so the lookalike danger may be negligible. I'll not bother to test that theory.

These are my current favorite mushroom. They have a bold but not offensive flavor, meaty and savory. So good sauteed and added to nearly anything. Just cook them, they are toxic raw.





These pretty club fungi were covering a very small area. They are Clavariadelphus unicolor. Some club fungi are good edibles and this one is said to be medicinal (don't get me started on medicinal mushooms, lets just leave medicine to doctors) so I decided to try it. It tasted slightly bitter and maybe a little sweet so I threw it in the frying pan. When I placed the cooked specimen on my tongue it was immediately rejected and went into the [luckily] nearby trashcan. Possibly the most unpleasant bitter flavor I've tasted, and I love Campari and gin. They're still pretty though.

Entoloma abortivum

These weirdos are commonly called Aborted Entoloma or Shrimp of the Woods. They have since been found to actually be Armillaria being attacked by Entoloma. So really they should be called Aborted Armillaria or maybe Aborting Entoloma.

Either way they are tasty. You can pan fry them with butter and garlic, basically just find a shrimp scampi recipe and forget the shrimp. They don't have a very intense shrimp flavor but they definitely feel like shrimp in your mouth, it works.






Now back to the woods, I haven't found my Hen of the Woods yet!

...to be continued...

Two mushrooms aglowing

Panellus stipticus 

Omphalotus illudens

I love glowing mushrooms!
These pretty little guys are Panellus stipticus, also known as the bitter oyster. Unlike the Jack O'lanterns (below) I was unable to see the glow with my naked eye. Their glow required an hour exposure to capture.

A cool bit of trivia, P. stipticus is found across N. America and in other countries but is typically only bioluminescent in eastern US.









So, I've been wanting to shoot a nice big cluster of Omphalotus illudens in situ. A friend told me about a large group that was accessible after dark so we hit it up. Unfortunately, there was a car dealership across the street from their stump and all my long exposures looked like daylight. I grabbed a few and took them home to my dark basement. I'm still pining for that shot but this one will do.

Fairies in the backyard

I forgot to post this earlier this week but there are mushrooms growing in my yard! All my bellyaching and complaining about how dry it is and how little mushrooms are out there seem to have spurred some unexpected growth out there.

There was a teddy bear that the dog plays with lying in the grass and I noticed white stuff around it, I naturally assumed the dog had finally disemboweled the bear and the stuffing was all over. It left my mind as soon as it entered. The next day my daughter came in and said, "Dad, haven't you noticed the mushrooms in the yard?" I got so excited and ran right out there to find a half circle of a fairy ring, it wasn't stuffing, it was shrooms!

I plucked some and came inside to research. Turns out they are Agaricus campestris or the Meadow Mushroom. These are very close to the button mushrooms at the store (which are Agaricus bisporus). They grow in fairy rings, which I'd never knowingly seen before. Very cool. they aren't to bad either. I may have to make some duxelles as someone suggested in my cooking with wild mushroom facebook group.

Beautiful Blewit

Today I spent the majority of the sunlit hours wandering in Raccoon Creek State Park looking at the ground, you know...like you do.

The beautiful Blewit!

The first find was a little Clitocybe nuda, commonly known as a Blewit. They typically grow in numerous dispersed groups on the forest floor so I frantically scoured the area to no avail. It was a lonely little guy but boy was he tasty!  After confirming that I didn't inadvertently pick up the similar poisonous Cortinarius iodes by spore print. I saw a rosy white spore print as opposed to the dark rust of the Cort, so into the frying pan it went! It was one of the most delicious mushrooms I've ever tasted.  I'll definitely need more, good thing the season just started.

The beautifully bitter Gym

This guy was solo as well. At first glance I thought I had a Bolete by size, shape, and the look of the stem but there's gills under there. It tastes bitter and it's spore print is a rusty dark orange. After some digging and help from my online friends it was ID'd as Gymnopilus luteus. I'll not be eating this one.

So soft, you want to pet this one

These gorgeous velvety shelves are Ischnoderma resinosum.

Nope, not bubble gum.

This isn't candy sprinkles, it's Lycogala epidendrum or Wolf's blood slime mold. If you poke these bubbles, pink slime oozes out Ghostbusters II style. Actually looks kinda yummy, but I'll pass.

Root

This was a cool one. Xerula radicata is a rooted mushroom with a sturdy woody stipe. Supposedly it's an edible but I left it behind (I actually replanted it).

This little fuzzy guy is Tyromyces caesius or the Blue Cheese Fungus. No mystery there.

Desert Pennsylvania

It's so dry! There's literally visible cracks in the dirt between the tufts of grass in the the yard. We have seen approximately 2 days of real rain since June. It's all around us but here in SW PA we're so thirsty that even the hardy weeds are drooping. I may have to start bringing a watering can to my shrooming spots. 

I keep seeing posts in my various shrooming groups of people hauling boletes, chanterelles, and even early Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa) out of their woods. Meanwhile, my hen tree still has last year's shriveled remnants clinging to the roots. 

Pretty much the only things growing are the inedible deadwood growing shrooms like the currently prolific black-footed polypore (Polyporus badius), and old dried out COWs (apparently, I missed a couple).

A couple weeks ago, a friend sent me a message about an enormous mushroom growing in his basement window well. So, naturally, I ran over to see if I could eat it...like you do. It turned out to be a monster Black-staining Polypore (Meripilus sumstinei). And yes, I ate some of it. Not choice, but not bad either. It doesn't smell great fresh, very intense musty mushroomy smell, but anything thrown into a pan to soak up some garlic and butter tastes pretty great. Good to know in case all other good edibles become sparse. I tossed most of it on a long dead stump in the backyard.  

(Forgive the cellphone pics, I brought my DSLR but found the card slots empty upon arrival to the woods.)

It's ALIVE!

Several weeks back I won a case of 8 MyCO2 oyster mushroom kits (go check them out they're pretty awesome and the contest is totally legit). After I let the mycelium grow for a few weeks I cut the first kit open to start the fruiting process. As soon as I saw the tiny pins I set up a timelapse and ran it for 76.5 hours, (exposed every 30 minutes). It was amazing to see the growth in just 30 minute intervals. I am concerned that I may have set the little guys back by leaving the light on those 3 days for photography purposes. That one cap sure is happy, but we'll see if the others catch up now that they'll be on a normal light cycle.

I'm super excited about growing mushrooms. These are pre-prepared kits but in the near future I plan on starting my own small farm that including mushrooms (and chickens and bees and goats and...).


...I'll probably have to start another blog.

The other white meat

Just a follow up on my last post about the Chicken of the Woods.

Tuesday

I went back to check on the baby chicken I found last Tuesday. It's now Friday and boy has he grown, check him out! And I totally nailed the baby ID, it is definitely Laetiporus cincinnatus or the "Pale Chicken of the Woods". 

 

Friday

I could have left him to grow a bit more but it's not supposed to rain much this next week and it's probably already soaked up the one day of rain we had this week. So, plucked him and we had BLACTs (bacon, lettuce, avocado, COW, and tomato) sandwiches for dinner. I found more chicken in the woods today than ever before. My basket was overflowing and I ended up freezing a gallon size ziplock bag even after dinner.


I found this next big guy just a couple trees over from the one above. 

I did find a small specimen of Laetiporous sulphureus and my daughter and I did a taste test between them. She actually preferred the Pale Chicken (cincinnatus). I'm very lucky to have children with adventurous palates. I'd say that sulphureus tastes most like a fried piece of real poultry while cincinnatus tastes very similar with but more mushroomy flavor. The cincinnatus was also softer while the sulphureus was more chewy (not at all tough though).

To illustrate the difference I took pictures of the undersides of both my finds today. Sulphureus has the bright sulfur-yellow pore surface while cincinnatus is bright white.

Laetiporous sulphureus

Laetiporus cincinnatus

Honey Honey

On my hike today there were several little clusters of golden/tan, gilled, and stalked mushrooms around the base of several trees. I initially thought they were Honey Mushrooms but having never encountered them I pulled out my trusty guidebook and found that I wasn't too far off. They were Ringless Honey Mushroom (Armillaria tabescens). I bagged two whole large clumps, leaving at least three smaller clumps to grow. I keyed out the characteristics from a couple other sources before I was confident in my ID. Now that I've tasted them, I'll be going back for the rest. The true Honey Mushroom, Armillaria mellea, is reported to be a "choice" edible while this one is only listed as "good". Ringless Honeys apparently grow just before the real Honeys start popping up so I guess I'm looking forward to finding those soon.
All the info I've found about these say to cook for at least 15 minutes to avoid gastrointestinal issues. I sauteed them in olive oil and a little garlic for about that long and they were delicious! I'm going on 6 hours since then and I'm feeling fine.

Identifying these can be slightly tricky if you don't know what to look for. They can resemble Jack O Lanterns to the untrained eye but if you've ever seen and ID'd them you'd never mistake these for Jacks, which are bright orange while these are tawny brown. The caps have darker brown scales or hairs more toward the center, the stalks are long, thin, darkening towards the bottom, and attached tightly together at the base. The gills are close and run down the stem slightly (decurrent).

Spore prints

The spore print is creamy white.

RELEASE THE SPORES!

The sun was at the perfect angle at the time to catch these spores taking to the wind. This mature specimen was really pumping out the spores, not sure if messing with it stimulated the spore release but it seemed to increase when I touched it.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

I have been a bad blogger, life is busy. I've been out shrooming several times but can't seem to find the time to sit here and share with all (three) of you my mushy finds. My last two posts were time consuming and verbose but I'll be doing shorter posts in the hopes that they'll be more frequent.

Today I'd like to tell you about wild chickens that likely lurk in the very woods near you. They're brightly colored and come in several shapes and sizes. They're very easy to sneak up on and all you need is a knife to bag them. They're much easier to prepare than your slimy germy farm raised chicken and they're totally vegan as well. This fungus is super meaty and can be used like any other mushroom but it makes an amazing chicken subsitute, it's not just the name.  I'm talking, of course, about Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) or just "Chicken Mushroom", as some call it.

My first COW 

My second and largest COW

My first Chicken of the Woods find was in early July and was just this one lonely shelf. My hiking friends and I chopped it up and fried it with chanterelles, eggs, bacon, and sausage for breakfast tacos. We brought our camp grill out and ate it in front of many drooling children at our neighborhood pool.


My second COW in late July was this big beauty! Ifound it in the same neck of the woods as the first. As you can see in the second picture, these things stick out like a sore thumb (or a bright neon orange mushroom) in the woods. This is where the general population's mycophobia comes in handy for the savvy mycologist. This one was just a couple steps from a frequently traversed trail, it was even facing the trail. I'm surprised it grew this large without some kid (or adult) smashing it for sport.

This big Chicken called to me from way off

This one provided several meals. We had fried chicken (of the woods) "fingers" and buckwheat pancakes one night for fun. We put it in a breakfast frittata. But my favorite recipe by far has been beer battered boneless buffalo chicken (of the woods) "wings". We've done that one a couple times now, in fact I'm currently digesting a buffalo chicken (of the woods) sandwich.

Today's COW

Chicken of the Woods (COW) grow directly on dead (or dying) wood. Typically found in these vertical shelf-like colonies, but sometimes growing in a large round rosette shape on the ground (on buried wood or roots) or at the base of a tree. These pictured are all Laetiporus sulphureus due to the bright "sulfur-yellow" pore surface. Another variety frequently found is Laetiporus cincinnatus, which has a white pore surface and is generally paler overall, thus garnering the name "Pale Chicken of the Woods"

Baby COW

This fungus I believe to be a young COW, possibly Laetiporus cincinnatus. I'll check on it again after a few days, maybe this weekend.

Old dead COW

This is an old dead COW, such sadness. No one but the bugs enjoyed this big one. Take note of where you find all your chickens growing (dead or alive) and check the same spot next season.