The rain has come to stay, and with it comes one of my favorite wild foods, mushrooms. I took my kids out on Saturday for our first mushroom hunt of the season, and was delighted to find the familiar bright orange caps of chanterelles poking their way up through the moss and duff. Many were just emerging, and this good news tells me the season is just getting rolling.
Now, one of my favorite things about mushroom hunting is that it is such a well rounded sensory experience. Going out in the forest to gather mushrooms is not the same as going out in your cultivated garden to harvest a vegetable. Foraging is wild. It’s meditative, and I find you can really immerse yourself in the searching. And once you find a mushroom, it feels like discovering a hidden treasure.
First, you have to observe your specimen. Is it a chanterelle? Is it a bolete? You must look very closely and make sure you have it properly identified. Once you are sure, it’s nice to just look at it and admire.
Next, you can smell it. While inhaling deeply the aroma of your mushroom specimen, you may discover a delightful array of scents. I find that the smell of fungi evokes the earth, autumn, the forest, and the dampness of rain.
Sometimes it’s really satisfying to just sink your teeth in and taste your mushroom. While they are best consumed cooked, it never hurts to get all the input you can gather about your food.
And lastly, it is good to just appreciate your mushroom. They are pretty amazing, after all, and it’s important to establish a good relationship with your food before you eat it.
“And once you find a mushroom, it feels like discovering a hidden treasure.” Definitely! It proves how much you worked hard just to find the most coveted mushrooms. 😉 By the way, those are really playful pictures. They were able to demonstrate how valuable mushrooms are. ^__^ Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful meal with those mushrooms. 🙂
Mack Shepperson
Mack, the meals were delicious. I just made a wild rice-acorn-chanterelle dish for Thanksgiving yesterday. Mushrooms are just fun.