We have about two acres of woods on our property and each year we seem to find new things. They were probably there all along but went unnoticed by us.
Actually this year didn’t start out great for mushrooms. The morel harvest was hit and miss mostly due to the temperature and rainfall fluctuation not meshing at the right time for ideal growing conditions. We did have a few shiitake harvests on our old oak logs that Noel inoculated about 5 years ago.
But come early July our mushroom luck changed. Have you heard the term ‘let sleeping dogs lie’? Well in the mushroom world that would equate to ‘let fallen trees lie’ (except when they’re blocking the road). On the southeast corner of the property Noel found a huge flush (several pounds) of golden oyster mushrooms on a dead tree and partially fallen log from the same tree. A couple of weeks later there was another flush.
I know they say you shouldn’t wash your mushrooms but sometimes you have no choice. Foraged fungi can be a bit dirty and buggy and a simple wiping or brushing may not do the trick. So to keep your mushrooms from the soggy side use the tip I got from my good friend, Linda. Prior to sautéing, sweat them in a dry frying pan on medium-low. When most of the moisture is evaporated add your butter or oil then. You can also remove the mushrooms from the pan and cook your garlic or onions first then add them back to the pan. I froze several little bags of the sautéed goldens.
Then in early September I was looking out the window and saw an orange mass on another fallen tree at the edge of the woods. Sure enough it was a Chicken of the Woods mushroom. We first harvested one from this same log back in 2013. Then another one in 2018. It really does have the texture of chicken and when sautéed with butter and garlic it’s quite tasty.
When Noel was harvesting the Chicken of the Woods mushroom he spotted a flush of white oyster mushrooms on the log behind it. This time I washed and dehydrated them for future use.
So the morel, I mean moral of the story is ‘let fallen trees lie’.
Wow! Wow wow, wow!
How can one differentiate between healthy mushrooms and those that are poisonous? I am always so hesitant to harvest wild mushrooms. Thank you very m UCB for this most interesting article.
Rule #1 with mushrooms is “don’t eat them if you are not positive what they are”. However, certain common and delicious mushrooms have no truly close poisonous look-alikes. The Internet is an excellent resource for mushroom identification and background information.