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.