If you’re looking for mushroom eating and cooking advice, you’d better look elsewhere. I could take or leave mushrooms as food. But learning I had chanterelles in my front yard earlier this year raised my mushroom consciousness, so I thought I’d share with you examples of mushrooms available around my neighborhood, all shot since Sept. 22, that are probably edible.
This one (about 1 foot across) was under a sycamore tree.
These were in the cracks between sidewalk paving bricks:
They were very cute, although Kansas Mycologocial Society prez Bob Bruce said they probably weren’t worth fooling with. Next is a somewhat desiccated version of a stinkhorn mushroom, found near the city pool. (I didn’t have my camera with me while it was still, um, tumescent. (See the fly on it? Goes with the territory, I hear.) Bob said they’re edible, but he wouldn’t want to eat them.
But the real prize mushroom I found wasn’t on the ground but 15 or more feet in the air. See the cream-colored lumps up there where the branches start?
Take a closer look:
This find was so exciting that a mushroom fan reportedly took a ladder and saw and harvested at least one of them. It was big enough that he couldn’t hang onto it and nearly dropped it on his confederate.
One last report, minus photo. There are some gray mushrooms in one spot that recur from year to year and seem to dry in place, turning black. They were up a couple of weeks ago. My dog likes to eat them. Of course, she isn’t what you’d call a picky eater.
Anyway, now that the temperatures are falling, I assume we’re largely done with wild mushroom “fruiting” for the year. What nonmycologist knew that wild mushrooms grow in the city?
Meryl // Oct 29, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Very cool!
Steve Brisendine // Oct 31, 2008 at 10:20 am
Wow. I’m envious. All I can usually find are wood ears and cloud fungus, which I take home to dry and use in Chinese recipes. This was a bad year for mushrooming, though. (Great for crabapples and grasshoppers, but those are another story.)
Of course, the grand prize would be to find a good morel ground … I could unleash my inner hobbit quite happily, were I so fortunate.
Janet Majure // Oct 31, 2008 at 4:29 pm
These were all within several blocks in an old part of town. Maybe established trees are the key (except, as I understand, for the stinkhorns).
Tena Bellovich // Nov 10, 2008 at 9:40 am
The first mushroom is the honey mushroom. Cook well before eating. Delicious and high in liposene.
The mushrooms in the tree were Lions Mane. Taste like lobster cooked. If you ever see them again, let me know. I want a spore print from them!
Janet Majure // Nov 10, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Thanks for the info, Tena. If I ever see such amazing fungi as those “lions mane” mushrooms, I’ll try to remember to let you know. However, these are the first I recall ever seeing, so don’t stand on one food while you wait!
Tena Bellovich // Nov 11, 2008 at 9:19 am
Amazing. Must have been the mild wet summer.