In Praise of Wild Mushrooms

I just got back from a walk in my woods where I picked a basket of the most gorgeous chanterelle mushrooms, the first of the season. It’s mid-July four days after a good rain following a hot, dry spell and the mushrooms are as fresh as they can be. A dozen or so of them are sautéing now along with some small, mild Egyptian onions from the garden. I’m just cooking the water out of them and browning them ever so slightly before adding the seasoned egg to make my morning chanterelle omelette, one of my favourite summer dishes.

Of the estimated 5000 to 6000 varieties of fleshy fungi or mushrooms in North America, Cantharellus cibarius is my favourite because there’s no anxiety associated with it. I am a nervous mycophagist. Most of us North Americans are. We are cursed with what the Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov called “timorous taste buds.”

If you’re someone who likes to collect and eat wild mushrooms, which is what a mycophagist does, timorous taste buds are advisable. With names for the poisonous fungi like Fool’s Mushroom, Fly Agaric, Sickener and Death Cap, it’s no wonder most of us avoid them altogether. About 90% of the handful of deaths from mushroom poisoning can be attributed to one family, the Amanitas, which includes the Destroying Angel. Just the spores from one of these mushrooms can be dangerous.

In contrast, the salmon-orange chanterelle is completely safe. They grow in exactly the same place every year providing several flushes of fruit per season. I’ve been collecting them from the same patch beneath an old spruce tree at the edge of a former pasture for over ten years. When you know what a chanterelle looks like, when you know it’s growing habits and if you have the privilege of calling a patch your own, there is no fear associated with the wild mushrooms of fairytales or those in rare news reports of accidental poisoning.

My chanterelles are sizzling away in butter, the water now nearly evaporated. Some of the shrunken fruits are just starting to brown. As I watch, I think about the walk to the pasture with my dog and cat following at my heels. Chanterelle season is only about six weeks long, so I approached the blessed tree with hope that the mushrooms would be up and that I would find them while they were still fresh. I recall my excitement when I lift the low spruce limb to find a chanterelle fairy ring or circle of about a meter in diameter loaded with the deep orange fruit.

This fairy ring phenomenon is simply a result of the way the roots or mycelium of some species grow outwards underground as they exhaust the nutrients in the soil at a central point. The fairy ring phenomenon explains the recent discovery of the world’s largest single organism, a specimen of the delicious Armillaria ostoyae or honey mushroom in the Malheur National Forest of northeast Oregon. Believed to be between 2000 and 8500 years old, the mycelium of this creature right out of science fiction creeps along on the roots of trees for 590,000 hectares or about ten square kilometres. It’s the size of 1600 football fields, and the only evidence of its existence are the decaying trees covered in honey mushrooms.

Mushrooms have fascinated humanity forever. Some cultures, like the Egyptians, considered them such delicacies they forbade common people from collecting them. Others believed they had the power to lead the soul to the realm of the gods. The English nicknames alone reveal a morbid fascination that has given us some of the greatest labels in the language of wild things. Dead Man’s Fingers, False Eyelash Cup, Toothjelly, Pig’s Ears, Turkeytail, Stinkhorn, Poison Pie, King Alfred’s Cakes and the Trumpet of the Dead are but a few my favourite fungi handles. Their forms are just as bizarre as their names: umbrellas, jellies, shelves, bird’s nests, earth stars, corals, brains and clubs are but some of the shapes fungi take on. Some even glow in the dark. The aptly named Jack-o-lantern shines so brightly where they grow on the roots of certain trees, it’s easy to spot them after dark. Now that’s the stuff of fairytales.

It is the capacity for the mushroom in all it’s bizarre forms to stimulate the imagination that led Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland to have the hookah smoking caterpillar offer Alice a bite of the mushroom on which he sat: “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.” When she gets to the tea party hosted by the March Hare, all the fantastic animals in her hallucinogenic dream are seated on mushrooms. Curiouser and curiouser.

I promise myself to overcome my timid taste buds and get out into the woods with my field guide, find more chanterelle patches, bring home an anise scented horse mushroom – I once collected one that made a delicious mushroom soup that fed four people – or a fat-stemmed king bolete and partake in what Russian author, S.T. Aksakov, called “the third hunt,” hunting for animals and fishing being the first two, in his book, Remarks and Observations of a Mushroom Hunter. Russians are especially lyrical about the topic. Russian peasants established a link between a rich mushroom crop in August and a bountiful wheat harvest, hence their adage, “If August is mushroomly, it will be breadly also.” But the most inspiring Russian reference to mushrooms is from Vladimir Soloukhin. In his Selected Works from 1974, he writes:

“While you are sorting out the mushrooms you recall each one, where you found it, how you first saw it, how it was growing beneath this bush or that tree. Once again all the images of the mushroom forest drift through your mind, all the secluded wooded spots, where you are no longer, but where the dark firs still lour and the crimson-touched aspens speak their language in low breath.”

My chanterelles are nicely browned now and the pan nearly dry. I turn down the heat, pour in the egg mixture, sprinkle on a little Parmesan cheese and wait. When the egg is nearly cooked, I carefully flip the omelette. The sight of the browned mushrooms now set firmly in the egg has me anxious to taste the first chanterelle omelette of the season. I slide it onto the plate next to a wedge of homemade bread and pour a fresh cup of tea. I take a bite, recalling the nearly luminescent collection of orange mushrooms beneath the broad branches of my louring spruce tree. Umm, deliciouser and deliciouser.

Top 15 Safety Rules of wild mushroom collecting:

1. When in doubt, throw it out. Always be 100% certain of a mushroom’s identity.

2. Search for new species one or two at a time with an experienced mycophagist.

3. Get a good quality field guide.

4. Learn the anatomy of mushrooms and how to apply this information to identification.

5. Learn how to make spore prints.

6. Learn the season and typical habitat for the mushrooms you want to collect.

7. Learn the species of mushrooms to avoid.

8. Never eat raw mushrooms.

9. Only pick fresh, young mushrooms.

10. Avoid mushrooms with signs of insect infestation and damage.

11. Heed warnings about which mushrooms are dangerous when eaten with alcohol, like the shaggy mane.

12. Use mushrooms as soon as possible after collecting them.

13. Store mushrooms in the refrigerator in a paper bag.

14. When trying a new species for the first time, eat only a small amount. Even though it’s safe for others, it may not be safe for you.

15. Never mix mushroom species in the collecting basket, in cooking or in eating.

Sources

Simon and Schuster’s Guide to Mushrooms

Peterson Field Guide: Mushrooms

Vladimir Soloukhin, Selected Works

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Wikipedia.org

Photo Credits

“A large patch of chanterelle mushrooms in a spruce forest.” © Darcy Rhyno

“A basket of freshly picked chanterelle mushrooms” © Darcy Rhyno

“Chanterelle mushrooms frying in the pan ready to be made into an omelete .” © Darcy Rhyno

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