Mushroom Foraging
I have embraced hunting! Mushroom hunting, that is. My goal this fall has been to learn more about foraging and feel more confident identifying mushrooms in the woods. I can already i.d. trees, so I’m halfway there. It helps that I geek out on taxonomy and love mushrooms. Why haven’t I made this a priority earlier? I’ve dabbled here and there, it helps my brother knows a lot and morels grow on my in-law’s property. But I’ve never felt confident of my own identifying because I’ve always had someone there to confirm the edibility of the mushroom, I never felt the need to figure it out on my own.
Luckily, I have a friend here who’s dad is a mycologist so we’ve been out a few times looking for mushrooms. It’s a lot of fun, wandering in the woods, scanning the forest floor. Maybe it will make my eyes better and I won’t need glasses anymore. She’s really confident in chanterelles, which happen to be my favorite mushroom. Now I am confident in chanterelles and through some thorough research, I am now confident in lobster mushrooms and cauliflower mushrooms. 3 new ones this season is a lot! I bought an i.d. book with great photos specific to the NW. It’s called All that the Rain Promises and more. The same author has a very large and thick bible of mushrooms as well. I’ll need it one day, but I’m not that advanced yet. Maybe when I move on to boletes I’ll get it.
But for now, we’re eating mushrooms almost every day, soups, stir-frys, quiches. It’s a lot of fun to find them and eat them. It’s so satisfying eating something YOU harvested. And I love it. Add mycology to my list of interests. I can’t wait to learn more. There’s a club in Portland I might join when things calm down and I have more free time to join clubs. I’ve detailed my cooking adventures with the mushrooms on my food blog if you are interested.