Mushroom question

[Mr. X]

Fab walking stick Foxfish! The book my friend used was not the one at the link above. It is "Easy Edible Mushroom Guide" by Prof. David Pegler -- we all like it (inc. a Polish colleague -- mushrooms traditional Polish fare). I will add a link later. The attraction of this book is that it had a both coloured drawings and colour photographs in a very user friendly format (similar to the Collins book).

Here is the book as seen on Amazon, although my friend's copy has a completely different cover (green, band at top & photo on front):

I too did a little mountain bike ride/mushroom collecting on Sunday. Interesting to see you have conkers. I checked sweet chestnuts but they are still a few weeks off here, I think conkers are usually a little earlier. I collected several fungi to practice identification. The most edible being some Puff Balls -- they could pass as soft puffballs (Lycoperdon Molle) but I think more likely Stump Puffballs (lycoperdon pyriforme) as they were growing on wood. I got a very positive id. based on the photograph in the Philip Rogers book on one mystery fungus and its distinctive fishy smell (Milk White Brittlegill = Russula delica). Another one might have been honey cap but too indistinct to risk. Another was identical to the Pholiota image in Roger Phillip's image index - unfortunately none of the images of specific sub-species looked like it! (Scaly Cap/Shaggy Parasol/Shaggy Pholiota/Pholiota squarros? - none worth eating). I plan to try the puffballs, having had a couple of other people confirm the identification (only the ones that are still white inside - BTW they smell distinctly of regular field mushrooms when you split them open).

 

[foxfish]

I collect the conkers because I use them in as part of my christmas wreaths that I sell from the farmers markets (at Xmas time) the walking stick is also something that I make & sell.

 

[Mr. X]

Years ago I had an attorney I worked for came out w/ a shroom book. Charles (Charlie) & brenda Shaddox. Think it might be available on Amazon. It deals with North America. Here in Tx we do get the Magic Mushrooms on cow pies.

I see one book classes these as poisoness and another as edible (but with significant explanatory text!).

 

[agbiv]

I am grown up now and no longer even consider indulging in such halucinogenic passtimes but in a former life the dried psilocybin (SP?) were used to make a tea that...well...was somewhat mind expansive.

About the grown up part...guess...the Peter Pan part of me is focused on sailing, spearo, flinters, and the outdoors. :blackeye

 

[DeepSeaApnea]

I am grown up now and no longer even consider indulging in such halucinogenic passtimes but in a former life the dried psilocybin (SP?) were used to make a tea that...well...was somewhat mind expansive.

About the grown up part...guess...the Peter Pan part of me is focused on sailing, spearo, flinters, and the outdoors. :blackeye

if they grow in cow poop, then they are good to go!!!! yippy hippy

freedive or free-high?(i.e. shrooms are free) now that is the question you should be asking yourself. I have over 5 grand in freediving equipment and can dive like 40m but when i really want to go deep i pick some shrooms lay on the floor and dive deep into god knows where, mostly the pacific....... you would not believe the crazy shit thats down that deep. mermaids with huge boobies and they all love me. haha

seriously you grown ups are to old for this shit. leave the shrooms to young college kids like myself. DISCLAIMER******I assure you all of my "research" it is all going towards my thesis paper on the war of 1812.

haha hope this made somebody laugh

 

[agbiv]

Please read TR as in Theodore Roosevelt's extensive treatise on the subject of 1812 NAVAL warfare. It is the epitome of the subject. :martial Do NOT do shrooms during this research. On youtube there is a very short segment showing destructive patterns of naval gunfire--search under naval gun or ship's cannon. I'll find it & post location. It's deadly accurate (pun intended). I am recrreating a small gun deck w/ 2 X 18" X 1.5" long X bore deck cannon for demo purposes. Hope to post pics when done. Cheers!

 

[Mr. X]

UK Truffles

I just came across an article in an old 2008 copy of The Field magazine on truffles in England. Apparently there is a farm where they are harvesting commericial quantities, having planted a new wood seventeen years ago on an old crop field which had been cleared over time by fungicides. The location of the farm is a secret - the reporter was blindfolded! But they can easily be found under moss on the ground. They opted not to use a truffle dog they brought because it was unnecessary! From the few clues in the article, it turns out the wood concerned is quite close to my home (I don't know its location though). I had a feeling there might be truffles in the area, from the types of wood prevalent in the area.

 

[foxfish]

There was still a professional truffle hunter in England in the 50s..
Some People can collect dozens from one tree that might be in there back garden!
Pesticides are responsible for the major decline in truffle harvesting in England, they were once very common especially in the south.

 

[Amphibious]

great thread! I do quiet a bit of mushroom foraging while hunting and in my capacity as a hunting guide. you spend so much time looking at the ground for sign it's a good time to look for yummy fungus too. around our lodge we have:

Matsutake (Pine) Mushroom - Tricholoma Ponderosa
Morchella (Morel) Mushroom - Morchella esculenta
Chanterelle Mushroom - Cantharellus cibarius
Shaggy Mane Mushroom - Coprinus comatus


these are the only one's i'm confident in harvesting. Frank, my Outfitter (Boss) gets the final say before they end up in the cook's hands. wild fungus and game meats are a fantastic pair.

we've been flying out of a little place up the coast called OceanFalls, doing some helilogging. it's covered in Aminita muscaria and psilocybe....

 

[foxfish]

I had to look up a few of those, I just love chanterelles, like little dots of sunshine showing through the moss.
Do you find them this time of year?

 

[Amphibious]

this time of year the lodge is under 2m of snow and sitting nicely at -35C. not to many shrooms about!

 

[Mr. X]

Was just watching Ray Mears, collecting "Penny Buns" - looks like a good one to eat (the top looks like the top of a bun) but I've never seen one round here.

 

[foxfish]

They are the one I most like to collect, the last ones we found were in mid December, we took them to a locale Italian restaurant to sell.
Da Bruno was very excited & bought the 6lb for a good price, I suggested he would feed a few guest with them to which he answered "no chance they are for me"

 

[foxfish]

We are off again with the first of the season, no problems with the little yellow beatuties but the cep had maggot holes all though the stem.
This is a common problem at the beginning of the season when temps are still high enough to allow the flies to be active.

 

[iPirate]

its good to see some fellow shroom-heads. the US is full of fungo-phobes. those chanterelles seem awfully small. a word of warning: shrooms are like fish, easily overharvested, ive seen many good spots become barren after tomany were harvested to soon.

its amazing how similar the fungus there in the UK is to here in CA.

happy munchings.

 

[foxfish]

Hey iPirate, great to have you on board this thread.
There would appear to be many variants of chanterelles - some big some small.
The ones in question have a history, they came from a park that was once a stately home & the oaks that host the srooms were planted in 1778.
The paticular tees were sourced from a region in France famed for the quantity of chantererlles.
I dont know why they are small but what you see is a mature mushroom!
However - where I live there is extreme competition as my home island is tiny!!!
Like most fish, mushrooms are endangered & impossible to produce in captivity!!!

 

[Mr. X]

I was logging recently and brought back a piece with what appears to be a Chanterelle - hoping it might spore my log piles. Will check it against the books and a shop bought Chanterelle at some point.

To be honest though, I've been thinking that fungus collection isn't worth the risk. The author of the Horse Whisperer and all his dinner guests ended up poisoned in hospital last year after eating non-Chanterelles in Scotland. Reading that big photo reference, it sounds to me like the author has probably inadvertantly poisoned his guests in the past - what he dismisses as physcosymmatic poisoning symptoms, makes me wonder if they were sensitive to a particular fungi chemical or, as his book points out, fungi sometimes have other fungi growing on them.

 

[foxfish]

Chanterelles dont actually grow on wood but near the base of certain trees, they love mossy areas.
Like I have said before - just stick to 3 or 4 easy identifiable mushrooms & study only those to start with.
In my mind it is always best to go on organised forays, I seem to remember you found someone organising a mushroom hunt last year but you missed it?

 

[Amphibious]

took this pic in the spring. had completely forgotten about this thread. found a bunch of morels on a logging road in Valemount, BC.

 

[Mr. X]

Yes, I'll look out for that mushrooming day but I think it might have been a one off...and it was with the guy who I think might have inadvertantly poisoned his guests that I mentioned. The "chanterelle" was on a fallen log, so perhaps not the real deal - or I might have been thinking of Oyster mushrooms, something we use for a particular a starter sometimes.