I love mushrooms. I mean really love them. So, my curiosity could not be quelled when a tremendous variety popped up in our back yard this fall. There were at least five different ones sprouting, generally near the woodlines.
I took photos and brought them inside to do some computer research. Bringing actual specimens in seemed like a bad idea, as my luck would be that touching certain ones would be deadly.
I quickly learned there is no such thing as easy mushroom identification. I took the one most promising and researched the heck out of it. The other I assumed was a puffball, and was right.
The Puffball
There are lots of tiny ones that went bad in the yard. For puffballs, if you don't get them at just the right time, they turn to spore dust inside and aren't edible. The one I had last night was baseball sized and perfect. Tasted a lot like a morel. They are solid white all the way through. Like slicing into a sturdy marshmallow. For big ones, you can grill slices and make them like personal pizzas. Mine was not that big.
Chanterelles
This was tough.
There are chanterelles,
false chanterelles (not poisionous, but not tasty nor particularly agreeable to some), and
jack-o-lanterns (poisonous, but not deadly) that all look similar.
The color did NOT look like a jack o lantern (more orange), but the "gills" did. The big problem is that chanterelles have "general" looks and growing behaviors, but there is a HUGE variety in looks and the growing behaviors are more "guidelines."
Once I was pretty sure it wasn't a jack-o-lantern, I decided to eat three and see what happened. No real issues. They could be false chanterelles, but they were really tasty. I don't think Chris was convinced.
Last night I went out and pick more, and quickly realized our woods are FULL of them. I tried six and no issues last night or today.
Last night I went out and pick more, and quickly realized our woods are FULL of them. I tried six and no issues last night or today.
So, tomorrow night I'm picking more shrooms!
6 comments:
I love mushrooms too, but not enough to eat the ones in the yard. I give you kudos!
Ooo - great pics. A baseball-sized puffball sounds pretty darn big! I think of them as about 1 - 2 inches in diameter.
We have puffballs in our yard, also morels, but I can't eat them because of a promise I made to my mom. She was at a rustic cabin picnic once, whereat a bunch of young people gathered mushrooms they knew to be "safe" and ate them. My mom didn't eat them because her doctor dad had warned her to never eat wild mushrooms. And yeah - everyone who ate the muchrooms got sick and 3 of them died. So it's like a second generation promise.
Drives my MIL nuts because she is always sneaking her wild mushrooms into the food she prepares.
When the puffballs are nice and ripe they are great fun to throw against trees because they just explode in a puff of spores.
That's a very dramatic story Swami-sheesh! My boss was not happy with me for trying the mushrooms.
Seeing morels go to waste would make me sad, but I get it.
Agree with Augie.
We had a family die in the small town I grew up in from eating poisonous 'shrooms. I was 11 and I still remember how horrified everyone was that they would eat wild mushrooms. I remember the mother had put them in the spaghetti and then, boom they're dead. Never knew them but that keeps me from eating mushrooms that's not farm grown. I'm a chicken. :)
Enjoy your 'shrooms Welly, but don't die! Especially before your trip!
I don't like mushrooms but I just had to comment on the "puffball."
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