April: Morel Mushrooms: Theyyyy'rrrre Heeeerrreee

There is nothing like spotting a morel mushroom in the woods.  This little guy was one of three that we found on Saturday (4/20).  We were looking for black (grey) morels, but found this small yellow (brown).  Each of them was about the size of my thumb.  I'm hoping there will be more as it warms up and if there are, I will post our culinary experiments.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding this little mycological wonder mushroom.  Attempts to grow them in captivity were unsuccessful until pretty recently.  In my experience, they love tulip poplars and elms and despise pine trees.  I have frequently found them near the edge of a collection of pine trees, but they stop short of entering.  

A friend claims that the brown morel starts on hillsides near water and then moves up the slope and away from the water over the course of their short season (end of April-May).  I haven't seen this growth movement myself, but I did find these little guys near a stream on a southern facing slope near a dead elm.  

September - Central PA Wild Mushroom Club

This past weekend I went out to Whipple Dam State Park to hunt for wild mushrooms with the Central PA Wild Mushroom Club.  There were several highly experienced mushroomers there who led different groups into the woods to search for a wide variety of mushrooms.  It was extremely informative and a fun walk in the woods.

As soon as we arrived, a few members found a couple hens of the woods mushrooms.  The above picture is not one of the ones that we found, but it gives an idea of what they look like and the general size.  This was the main objective of the outing as there are many hens out at this time and they are apparently very tasty. 

I didn't find any myself, but I did find three interesting varieties. 

The first was the Jack o' Lantern Mushroom (Omphalotus olearius). 

Again this isn't my picture, but this is what they looked like.  These are a poisonous mushroom, but they do have a beautiful color and they have a rather unique feature.  They apparently glow in the dark!  I didn't get a chance to see this in action, but they are slightly phosphorescent and if you place them in complete darkness, they glow.


I also found Granulated Boletes.  We found them under a white pine in clumps.  In order to eat them, it is sometimes recommended to peel the cap.  Some people have reported that the slimy coating has a laxative effect.  Bill Russell, a leader of the club, said that he has never had this problem, but I went ahead and peeled them anyway. 

I haven't eaten these yet because I didn't want to eat more than one kind of new mushroom at a time.

The mushroom that I did try was the "Small Chanterelles" (Craterellus ignicolor).  They look like a bright orange true chanterelle; however they have a trumpet like center as they age and are hollow near the top.  They do have the false gills. 

I fried these up in a little butter and they were very tasty.  They also had an almost citrus smell to them. 

July - Oyster Mushrooms

I've been looking for these for a while now as I mountain biked and hiked through the woods.  I found a few once before in June, just a few young ones, and they were really tasty.  I found these ones in August 2011 on a tree on the way back home from Fisherman's Paradise outside Bellefonte.  They were growing up the back of an oak.  

Amanda and I fried a few.  We dipped them in egg whites and then covered them in Panko bread crumbs and fried them in oil.  They were really delicious, though perhaps frying isn't the healthiest method.

With a majority of them, I tried a recipe for oyster mushroom chowder.  The recipes I found were very basic and I explored other chowder recipes (oyster/clam) for ideas, having heard that these mushrooms could be used in seafood recipes.  I settled on a recipe with red peppers and bacon added to the chowder along with liquid smoke and Tabasco sauce.  I won't give the details here because I wasn't overly pleased with the results.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't wonderful.  The mushrooms are great, but next time I'll go a different direction than chowder.