We had good luck with Chanterelles (both Cantharellus cibarius and Cantharellus tubaeformis). For the record we preferred the C. cibarius. We cooked some up with onions, homemade bread, and a cheese sauce.
It may have been a bit early for some of the tooth mushrooms that we typically find in October, like Hericium americanum (Bear's Head Tooth) and Hydnum repandum (Hedgehog mushrooms) but we found a couple and cooked those up too.
What there were PLENTY of this year were Craterellus fallax (Black Trumpets.) It's amazing how difficult they are to see. They blend in quite well with a typical New England forest floor. They key is looking for the ones which have turned completely black and are decomposing. You don't really want those, but if you look in the vicinity of the old, you will probably find the new - little vase-shaped mushrooms, usually grey with the top opening turning black. You may also see a hint of pink in younger specimens. There was a stretch of trail where we couldn't walk 20 feet without finding another patch. Our bag filled quickly. We ate a few but brought the majority of them home where they'll be cleaned, dried, and stored. They reconstitute well and can be added (cooked) to all sorts of recipes and sauces.
But it wouldn't be a wild mushroom report without an update on the search for the elusive king of the forest - the King Bolete. Boletus edulis. The standard by which all gourmet mushrooms should be judged. Heck, it's even an item in World of Warcraft, requiring your character to be level 45 and seated if you want to eat one.
Here in the real world, we haven't had a lot of success finding them. But on our last day hiking, there, smack in the middle of the trail, was what sure looked like a King Bolete... a brown bun-shaped cap, a stout tannish stem. But we've been fooled before. There's the dastardly Bitter Bolete. From a distance we often get fooled by some Leccinum. Or much worse, you do find a King Bolete but you were beaten by the maggots that found it first. Now in our case, a few fly youngsters (much more appealing than the m-word) indeed did find it first. The stem was pretty much useless and a few sections of the cap had to cut away but we were left with the majority of it. A few hours later we sauteed it in butter with salt/pepper and enjoyed the week's true prize. Delicious.
In addition to what's pictured we also found a nice variety of non-edibles including Fairy Stools, Earth Tongues, Spreading Cups, and a few poisonous Amanitas.
All in all, a pretty good bounty.
Note - A thank you to those of you who have taken the time to post a note in the comments section. This blog is definitely easier to keep up when I know there's actually a few people reading it. Thanks!
2 comments:
Oh my! This summer I found a HUGE king boletus and it looked so fine until I started washing it - it turned out to be a home to an enormous maggot family looking at me like at a v-e-r-y unwanted guest.
I want to thank you for sharing your mushroom hunting stories - there are not many people blogging about fungi and in such interesting way too.
Thanks Aluajala!
The other thing we were slightly surprised by was that it was growing by itself... no friends in the vicinity. I guess we should just be happy though.
Dan
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