Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius)

Season: July-September
Edibility: Choice!
Defining characteristics:  Orange color, ridges on underside of cap that look like gills but are not, growing in spread out groups but NOT a single large cluster, odor (from none to apricot-like).
Don't confuse them with: The False Chanterelle or The Jack-O-Lantern mushroom

I have now been hunting New England mushrooms for 1 year.  I have been hoping to find the chanterelle, and finally this last weekend I had success!  While visiting family in Maine and we took a hike along an old dirt road that proved to be full of fun mushrooms.  I will try and get to some of the other species in a later post, but for now- the chanterelle.

Chanterelles are one of the most sought after and popular wild mushrooms (you can read all sorts of neat things about them at wikipedia, from mushroomexpert.com, and mykoweb).  They have resisted attempts at cultivation thus far, and while they will come up in the same spot year after year, the amount varies from year to year, and the habitat is very sensitive to disturbance.  All this means that chanterelles are not a common find, and very expensive commercially.  So if you happen to find a chanterelle harvesting ground, please treat it with respect so that they can continue to be harvested in years to come!

Chanterelles and Black Trumpets getting ready for dinner

I found them in a dark, thick conifer forest that was fairly wet and near a marshy area.  There were probably 100 or so chanterelles spread out over an area about 30 feet wide, quite a great find.  We collected about 1/3 of them and got out of the area quickly, so hopefully next year we will get another excellent crop.

There are a couple potentially confusing look-alikes, so be VERY careful if you are not confident about your harvesting skills.  Read about the False Chanterelle and Jack-O-Lantern mushrooms (which glow in the dark!) and make sure you know what you are doing.

We made up the pasta below with our chanterelles, black trumpets (to be written about soon!), and our own garlic.  Super simple, and incredibly tasty- you can't beat fresh quality ingredients!


                                                                                
                                                                                

Chestnut Bolete (Gyroporus castaneus)

Season: June through October

Edible: Yes (with extreme caution as always!)

Defining characteristics: Chestnut colored cap, pale yellow underside, pores, hollow chestnut colored stem

The rains have finally slowed long enough to venture outside- and there are mushrooms! The boletes have started popping up right on time here in Rhode Island (mid-late June). I found my first Chestnut Bolete right in my backyard this morning. About two inches across, solitary with a deep chestnut colored cap and a very pale yellow underside.

I am focusing on my bolete identification skills first for a couple reasons: boletes are a smaller group of mushrooms, more easily identifiable, have fewer toxic species, and a bunch of tasty ones are locally available.

Basic mushroom lesson: The "classic" mushroom has gills on the underside of the cap (known as the pileus in mycology circles). They includes most of the mushrooms we are used to buying in the store- white button, crimini, portobello, oyster and are often refered to as "agarics". Boletes by comparison do not have gills- instead they have pores on the underside of the cap, as show in the picture of the Chestnut Bolete below.

Now that the mushroom season seems to be in full swing I hope to start compiling a good list of local mushrooms, as there does not seem to be such as list readily available online. Leave a note if you have more information on a species or if I have mislabeled a species!

Further reading:

MushroomExpert.com

Wildman

Rogers Mushrooms

Hedgehog (Hydnum umbilicatum)

This little hedgehog mushroom (a relative of the larger and better known h. repandum) is probably the most desirable species I have found thus far in my adventures.  It is relatively small(~1 inch across the cap) and grows very close to the ground.  It is suspected to be pretty closely related to the chanterelle (oooohhh) and is delicious! I have only found one small area where they are growing, however as they are supposed to be a perennially recurring species, I look forward to seeing them again next year with any luck!

Hedgehogs are considered one of the "safest" wild mushrooms to eat, as their spore bearing surface (underside of the cap) is quite unique.  Instead of gills on the underside (most common) or pores, the underside of these guys is covered in little teeth that look like mini icicles.  

All told I probably only collected about 15 of them- just enough for a tasty appetizer when sautéed in butter!

Read more about the Hydnum umbilicatum here or here.

(Note the teeth visible on the underside)

Flavor- Sweet and rich with a crunchy bite.

Hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa)

The Hen of the woods is what started me off on this adventure.  

You can read more about it here on wikipedia, but quickly: Hen of the woods is generally found near oak trees in the late summer to fall, is renowned for potentially having a host of medical uses, and can grow to be over 50 pounds!

The Story

One saturday afternoon I was surfing the web and read about some of the most common edible mushrooms- including the Hen of the woods.  As my property abuts a large forest, I decided to take a walk and see what I might find.  I did not make it more the 50 feet into the woods before I came across a beautiful specimen- or rather three around a single tree!  The odds of reading about a random mushroom online, walking a minute behind your house, and immediately finding a highly sought after mushroom in prime ripeness seemed completely implausible, so I walked on- not believing that this huge (more than 15 inches wide) mushroom could be the Hen of the woods.  

The next day I read about it some more, and visited it again- and it was indeed the Grifola frondosa!  Bugs were starting to swarm around it- but I managed to harvest a decent amount of clean mushroom.  

Hen of the woods is a great starter mushroom as it is unique in appearance, and the only mushrooms that look somewhat similar are not dangerous- and about as palatable as wood- so they are unlikely to be confused for long.

Here is my harvest- which is now frozen (except for those I had on a tasty egg sandwich!), and the second picture is a group of Grifola growing on a lawn were an oak tree used to live.

Taste:  firm with a nice texture- not unlike chicken, fairly mild.