Mushrooms. Edible fungi: Mystical, elusive, simultaneously predictable and unpredictable, delicious. The pursuit and study of edible fungi is the primary reason I started on this project. I now reflect on how many mushrooms I have stepped over, ignored, or not even noticed in my lifetime in the woods.

 

This webpage is not, and should not be used as, a field guide. As explained in the following essay, safety is of paramount importance in successful, enjoyable, and more importantly, safe, mushroom foraging and identification.

 

Somewhat contrary to that statement, one day, I was walking in the woods adjacent to my home with my father and was besieged by an aroma which was, at once, exotic, delightful and seemed to capture the very essence of the forest floor. I saw nothing. I asked my father to stop and then crouched down to ground level. There they were: trumpet shaped, black-gray-brown, both sinister and provocative. I knew right away: black trumpets, trompettes de la mort, trumpets of death, black chanterelles, craterellus fallax. Immediately, my father asked, I think perhaps rhetorically, “You’re not going to eat those are you?” From my many years as a chef, I felt very confident about the identity of the mushrooms. It should probably be noted at this point, however, that the single most important rule of mushroom harvesting is that if you are not absolutely certain about the identity, they should not be consumed. In any event, they were delicious and remain my favorite wild mushroom.

 

Edward O. Wilson asserts that there are approximately 69,000 known and identified species of fungi on the planet.[1] The total number is actually closer to 1.5 million, but the vast majority of them have not been identified. Of the known species, just under half, about 29,000 are macro-fungi, the kinds that produce a fruiting body, what are commonly called mushrooms.[2] The remainder of the fungal world is made up of mold, rust, smut and lichen.

    

Because mushrooms do not contain chlorophyll and therefore cannot synthesize glucose for fuel, they rely on other organic matter to survive and grow. From a collection standpoint: that is to aid in the mushroom hunt or harvest, the macro-fungi, mushrooms, can be divided into three types, based on how they interact with their environment, not to be confused with their taxonomical phyla, of which there are also three. Sacrophytes live primarily on dead organic matter. Some fungi attack living organisms, both animal and plant, and are called parasites. Those parasitic mushrooms that are considered table fare only parasitize plants. Finally there are the Mycorrhizal fungi that actually have a symbiotic relationship with other living things, particularly plants and trees.[3]

    

Now, here is something that fascinates me (and I happen to be quite fond of numbers). The standard mushroom field guide describes and in many cases depicts visually between about 600 and a thousand species. Of those, perhaps twelve or fifteen are considered exceptional, or choice, edibles. Another ten or fifteen are popularly collected, some are related species to the choice collectibles. There are about the same number of poisonous, not necessarily fatal, mushrooms, many of which look a lot like the desirable ones. So, if you’re looking to forage and eat wild mushrooms, there are no more than fifty species that you need to be able to positively identify.

 

As a percentage, from the original number of known fungi on the planet, 42% are macro-fungi or “mushrooms,” only two or three percent of which are fairly easily identifiable based on commonly available resources. Of those, that’s of the species included in field guides, only about three percent are potentially desirable. There are a lot of what collectors refer to as "LBMs" or little brown mushrooms, that don't have culinary value and are therefore, mostly ignored. That makes the whole thing either really easy, because if the focus is the collection of edibles the others (except for the poisonous lookalikes) can be virtually ignored, or really difficult, akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

    

Of course, you also have to consider that mushroom species only grow in the appropriate substrate, which may take years, fifteen to twenty, or in the case of certain morels, one big forest fire, to develop. The fungus then may only produce fruit for five to seven years, but only if the conditions are consistently right. Many only grow near certain trees. Each species has a preferred climate and a preferred time of year and many appear only after a rain. Basically, the collector has to be in the right place at the right time and know what to look for at that place and time.

    

I prefer to hunt for mushrooms in the fall. The variety is far greater than in the spring and you have to regularly shift visual focus. Many species seek camouflage from the fallen leaves of the tree species with which they associate. In the spring there are really only morels, though there are several different species. A lot of people forage only for morels: it is as much ritualistic as anything. As Jack Czarnecki, put it in A Cook’s Book of Mushrooms, “There is something special about morel hunting. Maybe it’s because… the morel is the first important mushroom of the season to appear… this is more than mushroom picking: it is a resurrection… they sow spiritual spores in our psyche and in the spring we humans are summoned.”[4] Admittedly, the phallus-shaped morel appearing almost miraculously from the just warmed soil does seem to embody the rebirth that is the spring. (continued)