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