Puff and Blow

I was raking while barefoot because barefoot links us with Earth energies and all that, when I saw puffballs: One fresh (beige, about 3 inches in diameter) and one blown (the brown, tattered one on top) and rejoiced because I had thought the season was over. Promptly I obtained a paring knife and bag and harvested my dinner, provided that when I sliced it lengthwise it was pure white inside. It was. Puffers (in this case, Calvatia gigantea) barely have stems at all. When dried-out and brown their heads explode volcanically, sending spores far and wide.

Put on my hunter-orange cap and scoured the nearest quarter of the Divine Woods, all gold-leaf and black hieroglyph, for the same sort of prize, not finding a darned thing, and then I looked down and in the crevices of a log were whole colonies of puffers, little ones, also fresh.

These I scooped up not to eat but to propagate. All along the walk home I crumbled, threw and dropped the pieces, hoping for more puffers next fall. Not tired enough, I tried another trail and found another large puffer, not so fresh. This too I crumbled up and tossed hither and yon. May there be puffballs, a lot, next year. Tomorrow, after the hunters leave the area, hike into deeper woods to seek  more. To cook, slice them lengthwise, always making sure they're pure solid white inside, and saute in butter.

Judas' Ear

Rain brings for one day these delicate and translucent wood ear mushrooms, usually velvety brown, growing on thoroughly dead branches. They pop up at all times of year after a soaking. You'll find these in Chinese cuisine, but they are so light and flavorless -- really, they're jelled water -- they are not worth cooking and eating any other way, except for their 9 grams of protein per 100 grams of mushroom.

You have to, must, are required to cook them or they are not edible at all. They and the water they are cooked in are folk remedies for sore throats.

Latin name Auricularia auricula-judae tells a story: These are often called Judas's Ears, because Judas hanged himself from a tree.

Pretty Poison(ous) Fall Mushrooms

Amanita for sure.

Veil hangs off the cap's edge -- like a slip showing.

Shreds of a veil.

Two weeks ago, edibles were widely available, but today's pass through the woods showed me some strange and beautiful fungi that, after I looked them up, I found belonged to the Amanita family. Avoid this deadly family. Its mushrooms can be white, yellow, orange, red, gray, brown, or greenish. Gorgeous but poisonous. How are these Amanitas although they look so different? They show family characteristics. If you see even ONE of these characteristics, stay away.

1. Amanitas grow from a bulbous base.
2. Amanitas have a thin "veil" from the stem to edges that tears and shreds as the mushroom grows. Often, there are shreds left hanging, like a slip showing. Often, there's a ring around the stem where the veil was attached.
3. Amanita caps often have pimples or scales, or they look as if they were salted with flake salt or peppered.
4. Some Amanitas have shaggy stems.

These are from the woods, but Amanitas also appear in lawns and in mulch bought from garden stores.

A First Time for Everything

This is not a Hostess Snowball; it's a mushroom, a Bearded Tooth (Hericium erinaceus) and for a couple of years I've been reading that Bearded Tooth tastes real good, ranking up there with morels and chanterelles as "choice" eating. Found it in my woods on a fallen log along with several others, but took only this one and a smaller one about an inch and a half in diameter. I'd read that they tasted good only when extremely fresh, and turn sour as they age.

So in the kitchen I brushed off the bits of dirt and took a knife to it. The "teeth" are very soft, softer than coconut, and the inner part about as firm as a button mushroom's interior, except it's branched, like the interior of a cauliflower. It smelled good, like mushrooms. Not knowing what else to do--I'd never eaten one or been served one--I sliced it into little steaks.

Bearded Tooth in the pan.

Next I threw butter in a pan and let it sizzle, laid the mushroom slices in, and cooked them through. Never, never eat raw mushrooms, especially wild mushrooms. Many contain toxins that evaporate when they are thoroughly cooked. Sauteed in butter is my favorite. Added a little salt. The Bearded Tooth slices gave off a lot of water before they browned.

Next, the test phase. Before eating any wild mushroom or serving any I always taste a tiny, tiny bit. I'm not allergic to any mushrooms I know of, but a taste is enough to cause a reaction if one's going to happen. My guests do the same test. I swallowed and then waited a few minutes. When I did not choke, vomit,  or die, I ate some more.

Bearded Tooth is the most delicious mushroom I have ever eaten. It's sweet, in the way lobster meat is sweet. I'd rather eat Bearded Tooth than morels or even the chanterelles I like better than morels. I'd rather eat Bearded Tooth than Chicken of the Woods, or Hen of the Woods, or oyster mushrooms. I love first-time experiences!

Or I love most of them. On my way out of the woods with my basket of shrooms a buzzing wasp somehow got caught in the shiny hoop earring I was wearing in my left ear. It struggled and couldn't find its way out. I swatted at it and then pulled the earring out. By then it had stung my earlobe. It swelled and hurt like an s.o.b. and I prepared to transmit my GPS position and die like people on Mt. Everest do. When it didn't happen I kept mushroom hunting, forced by the swelling to remove a stud earring (I wear four in each ear). It hurt for two hours. Now I'm fine. If you love the woods, got to take the rough stuff with the good.

Ringless Honey Mushrooms

In mid-Missouri woods this week choirs of these mushrooms are growing close to the ground, their cymbal-like caps anywhere from half an inch wide to two inches each, clustered at the bases or stumps of oak trees or bubbling up from buried wood, and from a distance they resemble "hens of the woods," but they've got gills and separate stems and no rings on the stems, so they're ringless honey mushrooms. Whether they taste honeyed I'll never know because the Mycological Society says, "Never eat little brown mushrooms." There's also a "ringed" version, and a semi-look-alike fall mushroom with a bright orange cap that also grows in "bouquets" like these: the Deadly Galerina, also called the Jack O'Lantern. Edible mushrooms to hunt for now include puffballs and "hens of the woods." A famous mycologist told me he frequently receives emails with photos from people who write, "Can you identify this mushroom? I didn't know what it was, so I ate it." Poisonous mushrooms can dissolve your liver and kidneys. Don't risk it.

DaVinci Said

Varieties gathered during a 90-minute foray, Rockwoods Reservation

"To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another."

-Leonardo da Vinci