What's Veeky Forums's favorite mushroom to eat? I recently got lucky enough to find a patch of rozites caperata innawoods behind my house and their fruiting season has become my favorite part of the year.
Morels gonna be coming up soon as well. Anyone go hunting for them regularly around here?
>tfw barbed wire blocks off 99% of land around you
>tfw can't hunt for mushrooms even though they're common as hell
fuck the land run
That's terrible, user. What part of the country are you in?
I've never had Rozites caperata but my MSc supervisor thought they were the best.
the flyover of flyovers
We have lots of lakes and fresh water, great places for mushrooms to grow, but there's barbed wire everywhere. It makes no sense. Barbed wire is evil. It should have been made illegal after WW1. I need to find a better state.
They're fantastic. They've got a bit of that chanterelle-spice going on, but they're much thicker, so they tend to hold up to cooking better than most agarics.
When morel season comes around, I would drive northeast, and keep an eye out for where any wildfires have been throughout the year. You're almost in prime morchella territory.
Anyone got tips for a first time forager? I live in the Boone/Blowing Rock, NC area if that helps
Oh shit user, same here. Strongly recommend the mycology course at App State if you're a student. You don't really need any prior biology knowledge and the prof. will take you out on a bunch of field trips and teach you.
This time of year, morels are gonna be the most easily identifiable thing around. Learn how to differentiate it from gyromitra and check out the burned up areas near gatlinburg when they start sprouting. That's where I'll be looking as well. If you know the location of any fruit tries, morchellas really like those as well.
The real show up in the mountains starts in late summer/early autumn, though. That's when you can start finding things like lactarius indigo (the blue mushroom above), coprinus comatus, chanterelles, and hericium species. I'll be posting pics of each of those shortly. Pic related is morchella.
Lactarius indigo are one of my regulars that i find when I'm making my rounds. You can really easily identify them by slicing open the gills and checking for a leaking blue fluid (latex) like in the picture. No toxic mushroom will have that blue latex, so you're really safe picking these. Aside from coprinus comatus, it's really the only gilled mushroom I'd recommend to a newbie. Gilled mushrooms in general tend to be way more risky to pick than, say, boletes. So probably best to stick to the safe, easy ones until you learn more. Careful when picking some of the older ones though, the stem tends to hollow out the bigger they get, which makes them prime targets for insect larvae. Always slice them open before cooking.
Seems like a lot of work for not that much gains. Mushrooms aren't that great. Is it more of an excuse to get outside?
Cubensis
I'm past college but it'll be a good resource if I need help identifying anything, thanks! Definitely going to keep an eye out for chanterelles come this august
>tfw you buy a pressure cooker and make pounds of psychedelic mushrooms for 20 bucks of equipment
I wish this shit was addicting, I would be a rich cunt. I have giant bags of mushrooms sitting in my freezer because I can only use them a couple times a month.
This one is coprinus comatus, or shaggy mane. Look for this one in autumn. These absolutely must be fresh when cooked, because they turn to black, unappetizing mush a few hours after picking (and even when left unpicked, they still melt.). The good news is, they grow so fucking quickly you'll often find three fresh patches sprouting up for every melted one you find. So keep checking the same spot frequently, these mushrooms will keep coming. Shaggy manes make for 10/10 risottos, incidentally.
Well, aside from the personal taste aspect of it all (mushrooms are easily my favorite food), the appeal comes from a few different things. Like you implied, it's a fantastic hobby to combine with hiking. I live in the appalachian mountains and it's a beautiful experience. There's also the satisfaction of sourcing your own food from the outdoors. On top of that, lots of mushrooms taste surprisingly distinct from the standard agaricus and oysters you can buy in the grocery stores. Honestly, the more common edibles are pretty trivial to identify with enough experience, and for the mycorrhizal species, the patches tend to appear in the same spot year after year. So it's less work than it might seem at first, even for someone just getting started.
pic related is what happens when you let a shaggy mane sit. Always slice one in half before taking it with you. If the gills are black or even pink (or anything other than white), it's too far gone and you shouldn't eat it.
how did you get into foraging for mushrooms?
I want to start but have no idea waht I'm doing
For me it started with a mycology course in my last semester of college. I live in the appalachian mountains, so the area is beautiful enough to make you want to spend as much time outdoors as possible. It's also one of the best regions for mushrooming in the world, in my opinion. There's plenty of resources online to help you get started, and I occasionally make threads on Veeky Forums to discuss and give people pointers. As always, though, you should take everything on Veeky Forums with a grain of salt, and never eat anything you aren't 100% sure is safe. The last thing you want is some jackass telling you to eat some strange amanita and having you die a week later from liver failure.
Pic related is another fantastic fall edible, hericium erinaceus. It doesn't have any toxic mimics, and it's very hard to confuse with anything else. It's a parasitic mushroom, so look for it on wounded or dead trees.
Thanks for the tips user, I'll be in Colorado where theres mountains everywhere so I'll keep an eye out on those fallen trees
my uncle is one of the biggest truffle forager nerds in oregon, he used to get tons if boletes or whatever theyre called and morelles. i remember the morelles more than anything, he would fry them up and lightly salt them. they were incredible. the truffles are good too.
Happy hunting. They can be found up high in the tree line as well, so look up occasionally. Most people miss them that way.
Oh, man, I'm intensely jealous. I've never been mushrooming on the west coast, but it's definitely on my bucket list. You guys get some of the best mushrooms. Pic very much related.
Bumping with one of the more interesting edibles found around my area, Entoloma abortivum. Ordinarily, this is a pretty but plain-looking gray mushroom that's only mildly interesting. It does, however, have a habit of parasitizing honey mushrooms (armillaria mellea, which are themselves pretty tasty). The armillaria aborts the growth of the mushroom when it's consumed by the entoloma, resulting in a puffy white mass of mushroom flesh. The resulting mushroom has a nice buttery flavor. Now that I think about it, it would probably go well with some alfredo-based pasta. Mmm.
Recently found out about King Oyster Mushrooms. Pretty good cut up in stir fry.
I used to see Entoloma abortivum quite commonly where I used to live. But that was when I went mushroom collecting lots, now I pretty much stick to looking for discomycetes and never had much interest in eating mushrooms to begin with.
Might be plebian as fuck but for me, it's the morel.
Never hunted for mushrooms. I live in southeastern KS and have no idea what to look for
Giant Puffball (Calvatia Gigantea)
Literally can be made into vegan Schnitzels. Sadly they are very rare...
I can never find any type of oysters outside of the market. It's sad, really, they're pretty tasty and being saprobes, you could probably cultivate them without too much trouble.
Out of curiosity, why discomycetes, user? Research?
Never anything plebeian about morels, they definitely live up to the hype. Like the other guy above, I recommend driving a bit northeast this spring and trying to find some for yourself.
I've always been curious to what they taste like. I've eaten smaller puffballs and theyve always been pretty bland or needed to be used with some pretty strong flavors.
I want to make a vegan lasagna for a friend. She's italian, has only just turned vegan and has been mourning the loss of her cuisine.
I was thinking of trying a lasagna with lots of layers, each with a different breed of mushroom that's been thinly sliced. I want her to see that there are vegan ways of cooking traditional food, and to introduce her to the idea that the amount of ingredients available to her aren't necessarily as limited as she thinks.
I don't know if anyone has done something like this before, it's my own idea. What do you guys think? Any recommendations for types of mushroom/a sauce to serve it with?
>pressure cooker
How does that work? I just have a SGFC.
I don't like mushrooms but I'm willing to give them a chance. What are some dishes/recipes that focus on mushrooms, whether it's the main focus or incorporated into another dish, that I could try?
I have a few of these mushrooms growing in the corner of my yard, do you think they would be edible?
looks like natalie mars' dick
funky upward disc shape? i say no unless someone here can post some link showing its fine.
There is a palm tree stump under the ground and I think they're growing from that.
tree mushroom? the ones i see off of trees are normally ok. try to research it just in case
>Mushrooms aren't that great
>my opinion is objective
kys
some kind of woody polypore. not gonna be good even if it turns out to be edible
...
That looks like a Ganoderma growing from a decaying tree root. Turn it upside down and see if you can write on it with a stick or whatever. Artist's conk.
>Out of curiosity, why discomycetes, user? Research?
Research and hobby (the two have merged in many ways). I really like microscopy and discos can be quite beautiful.
that sounds like a fantastic idea, user. I'd do some research about what types of mushrooms are typically used in those types of traditional dishes.
Risotto is my personal favorite. I like to use a mixture of different types of chanterelles. Just be careful cooking with those if you go that route, its easy to overpower the flavor.
like others have said, it's a ganoderma. It's gonna have the texture of cork, so yeah. inedible. they stain brown/black on the underside though, so they can be fun to draw on. pic related.
I like them on philly cheesesteaks, thas it tho
Expanding your horizons can be fun, user. Not all mushrooms taste the same.