Chanterelle Dreams and Amanita Nightmares

For more than twenty years, I’ve been teaching people about mushrooms and leading walks throughout Maine. Hundreds have joined me for beginner’s walks and talks, and I regularly lead more in-depth classes on mushroom identification and the use of medicinal mushrooms. Easily, the most common question I get is: “What mushroom is this?”, quickly followed by, “Can I eat it?” Sometimes the truly directed person will skip the first question.

These two questions are significant. The question of identity is in keeping with the roots of western culture or, perhaps, of human nature. We need to know where an object fits in our world, and the first step toward this understanding is a name. My son began to categorize construction vehicles by their appearance and function and, within the categories, into specific types at an astoundingly early age. Well before the age of two, he knew an articulated bucket loader from one not articulated and could differentiate a variety of similar dump trucks by name. He moved on from construction vehicles to horses and then into the even more complex and diverse taxonomy of dinosaurs. The need to know and to name was strong in his small psyche. The need to categorize things into groups and to further categorize the groups into distinct named entities seems fundamental for many people. Knowing the name of the mushroom, or anything else, gives it a place in our world and makes it ours.

That second question, “Can I eat it?”, may relate to the deep-seated forager in most people, the connection to a hunter-gatherer heritage set in pre-agrarian times. The drive is primitive and survival-based, the need to exploit the knowledge of the natural world to feed and shelter self and kin. Mushrooms are one source of sustenance in the wild and come with a definite, predictable seasonality.

Though they cannot be counted on to provide massive calories, mushrooms do provide a source of protein and vitamins when other traditional food sources may be less available, for instance in a year when crops fail due to flooding or due to a cool wet summer in Northern regions. For people reliant on crops, mushrooms can be an emergency food in famine years and a supplemental food every year. Most Americans have ancestral roots intimately tied to foraging just a few short generations past.

Today, Americans generally forage for mushrooms along the aisles of the produce section of the supermarket, and the more adventurous at outdoor farmer’s markets or specialty stores offering wild mushrooms. Mushrooms are primarily grown, purchased, and used as a food ingredient to supplement the taste, interest, and nutrition of meals rather than as a main course. However, they should never be discounted as a valuable addition to a healthy diet. Mushrooms are a fairly good source of protein. Depending on the species, they contain from 10 to 45 percent protein on a dry weight basis. This makes them equal or superior to almost all vegetable sources and below only milk, eggs, and meat. (It is important to acknowledge that mushrooms need to be cooked in order to break down the indigestible cell wall material and make the nutrients available.) Mushrooms are naturally low in fats and are a good source of several essential vitamins and minerals. Depending on the mushroom type, they contain varying amounts of B vitamins (niacin, riboflavin, and biotin), vitamin C, and consistently high concentrations of vitamin D-2, also known as ergosterol. The vitamin D-2 converts into vitamin D in the presence of sunlight or ultraviolet light. In addition to vitamins, mushrooms contain appreciable amounts of the minerals sodium, potassium, and phosphorus and lower concentrations of calcium and iron.

In some tropical and third world regions where carbohydrates are easily obtained, protein is often the limiting factor in rural diets. Mushrooms offer an easily grown or collected source of protein. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) review of edible wild fungi underscores the use of wild mushrooms as a significant food source in certain countries in Africa, Asia, and the former USSR. In all, the review identified eighty-eight countries across the globe in which mushrooms are collected for food and where they also offer an alternate source of income.¹ In some developing countries, mushrooms remain an important basic food during times of the year when traditional root crops are not available. In other regions of low protein availability, farmers are being taught low-tech methods to cultivate edible mushrooms, such as varieties of oyster mushrooms, using agricultural waste. As the mushroom mycelium breaks down the plant waste, it produces protein that is then incorporated into the fruiting bodies. In this way, farmers can grow a crop high in needed protein for families and community while converting agricultural waste into a source of income.

In the United States, most people who collect wild mushrooms for food do it for the unique flavor and texture that mushrooms add to a skillfully prepared dish rather than as a survival source of nutrition. Reclaiming traditional foods from regional cuisines or exploring new fusions of taste gives us the opportunity to expand on the choice of mushrooms beyond the pale supermarket button. Wonderful dishes centered around regional wild mushrooms have been perfected over time in diverse cuisines worldwide. Generations of skilled cooks in Italy have passed on classic dishes that show off the specific taste and texture of fresh porcini (Boletus edulis). Other dishes harness the deep flavor of dried porcini to infuse a meal with rich earthy fungal essence. If chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius) are fruiting, an experienced mycophagist and cook would never dream of using the same methods and recipes that make porcini shine. The subtle aroma and flavor of chanterelles call for totally different pairings—eggs or chicken, cream sauce, and simple butter sautés are in order. The same experienced cook would never consider drying a chanterelle as a method for preservation, as that would destroy the texture, aroma, and flavor that define this midsummer golden beauty.

The best, time-tested mushroom meals require few complex cooking techniques and even fewer special ingredients beyond the right kinds of mushrooms. The first step is to familiarize yourself with different types of mushrooms and the menu possibilities. Then assemble the ingredients and have fun with them. The following pages will introduce you to some of the best wild mushrooms in the world and some of the most common and easily identifiable mushrooms you are likely to find in your region. Some of the best edibles are also among the more easily identified, and are fairly common across much of the United States. So head out and learn a few good local mushrooms or find a local source to purchase wild mushrooms and enjoy the process and the prospect of great eating.

Guidelines for the New Mycophagist

I developed this set of guidelines for anyone who is considering hunting for and eating wild mushrooms. Although the guidelines may seem extensive and cautionary, it’s important to consider them all. Additional resources such as books, Web sites, and mushrooming organizations are listed in the Appendix.

Before Collecting Any Mushrooms for Food:

Learn as much as you can about mushrooms. Spend as much time and effort learning the poisonous mushrooms as you do learning the edible ones. Become familiar with the toxic mushrooms that resemble the good ones you intend to eat. Safe eating requires knowing both. Here are some resources to help you learn, with details in the Appendix:

1. Buy and use one or more good mushroom field guides that cover your region of the country.

2. Become familiar with the best mushroom identification and information sites on the Internet.

3. Take part in mushroom classes or public walks.

4. Join a mushroom club or mycological association. Though they might sound high-brow, mycological associations are actually a friendly mixture of experts, hobbyists, and beginners united by an interest in mushrooming. (See the Appendix for options).

5. Befriend an experienced local mushroom guide. Home-baked cookies are a powerful inducement.

When Collecting Mushrooms:

1. Start slow and stay safe. Be conservative about the groups of mushrooms you collect for eating. Begin your mycophagy with the common well-known edible species in your region, such as the “Foolproof Four.”

2. Avoid collecting mushrooms from potentially contaminated sites. Some mushrooms can concentrate heavy metals and other contaminants. Avoid busy roadsides, landfills, golf courses, power lines, railroad beds, or other industrialized or potentially polluted land.

3. Take only young or prime specimens, leaving old ones to drop their spores. Old mushrooms are perfect breeding grounds for bacteria. They are 85 to 95 percent water and loaded with up to 45 percent protein.

4. Collect a number of specimens in various stages of growth in order to gain a good understanding of what changes occur to the mushroom as it ages. There are often remarkable differences between the appearance of the button and mature stages of a mushroom.

5. Collect all parts of the mushroom, above and below the ground.

6. Do a spore print to confirm spore color as an aid to identification.

After Collecting Mushrooms:

1. Do not eat a new mushroom prior to having collected it several times. Each time, confirm identification (including taking a spore print for color). This is increasingly necessary as you collect and eat more obscure species.

2. Never eat a mushroom unless you are 100 percent certain of the identification and its edibility. When in doubt, toss it out! This is vitally important!

3. Avoid eating mushrooms that closely resemble or are related to toxic species. Why bother, when there are so many great edible, easily distinguished mushrooms?

When you are certain that you have correctly identified and weighed the risks of the mushrooms you intend to eat:

4. Keep some uncooked specimens for comparison, just in case of mistaken identification.

5. When you are trying a new mushroom, cook up a small amount and try a few bites. This first meal of a new species is never shared with family or friends.

6. Always cook your mushrooms well. Some mushrooms are toxic when raw, and all are more easily digested following cooking.

7. Be cautious with new friends who dine at your table. If they are not familiar with wild mushrooms, let them know what they are eating so they can make the decision for themselves. It’s not unheard of for a case of “mushroom poisoning” to crop up as a result of someone’s anxiety about the meal they’ve just eaten. There is a strong body–mind connection, and the stomach is firmly wired into that pathway.

Anyone who approaches mushrooming with open eyes and is prepared to follow these guidelines will be well protected from getting sick. Remember: Eating wild mushrooms need not be an extreme sport or a competition for developing the longest list of species eaten. Many devoted lifelong mushroom hunters have learned two or three species they know and love that provide them with an opportunity to be out in nature and to collect an ample supply of edible mushrooms for the entire year. Always keep your hunger for knowledge ahead of your hunger for mushrooms.

You can give a woman a basket of wild mushrooms and feed a family for a day, but if you teach her to identify and use a few species of great wild mushrooms, she can provide a family with great mushrooms for life. Trite, yet true.