Mushrooms

[pasithea]

I've been kind of gloomy about the move thing. Yesterday evening when Stacey and I were running errands, I spotted a bunch of largish mushrooms from the car that I couldn't instantly recognize so to cheer me up, she stopped and let me look.

They were very common it turned out but I haven't spent much time identifying the types of mushrooms that grow under pines and it was the first time I'd got to meet either in person.

There were two types, growing (as they frequently do) intermixed with one another. One was Chroogomphus vinicolor (Pine Spike) and the other was Suillus pungens (Pungent Slippery Jack) Both are edible (for certain degrees of edible)

The pungent slippery jack was described as 'fruity but harsh'... I would describe it as 'fruit loops and radishes mixed with pine pitch' .... It's kind of a fascinating combination of flavors. I'm still trying to figure out how I might be able to cook with it. I'm thinking I might be able to use it in a pesto.

The pine spikes on the other hand are more commonly collected. They don't have a lot of flavor but they are an interesting orange and purple color and when added to soups, they take on a texture not unlike an old bicycle innertube. Very chewy. They should make a great meat substitute. :)

*sigh* Why must I be in the middle of moving at the height of morel and chantrelle season? I could be out in the woods hunting for really delicious mushrooms. But ohwell. Most mushroom hunters don't seem very imaginative in their cooking. If something doesn't taste good sauteed in butter, they tend to not like it. Me on the other hand... I made a pretty tasty curry out of durian and thousand year eggs. These mushrooms should be easy. ^_^ The pine spikes, if I slice them very thin should be no different from woodears and should work great in hot and sour soup. The slippery jacks.... I'm going to have to think about a bit. The russians make pickles out of them but I think I can do better. :)

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

You're moving at the height of morel and chantrelle season because, in a little bit, you'll practically be in the woods, and can therefore just walk straight out to look for stuff. And while moving you can get a feel for the terrain and where things are likely to be later in the year. How's that for being optimistic about the chance to eat bits of the scenery?

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Most of the good mushrooms around here are fall autumn and winter. I'll have to wait 8 or 9 months.

OTOH... Mmmmm... Scenery.... *nomnomnom*

I am going to round up some blewits and some forest agaricus and see if I can get them to grow in my yard. They're great for plants as they break down tree debris and such and put nitrogen into the soil.

I've also been thinking about setting up a bin to compost my old paper and wood products and growing oyster mushrooms on it. That would rock because it'd be less trash going out from our place, production of really great mulch for my garden and delicious mushrooms. They break down the materials enough that the other types of mushrooms can do secondary decomposition.

I think, since I've been studying mycology quite a bit, my new garden will be able to be super-organic. If I can get the right combination of mycelium going, they'll both enrich the soil (getting us better plant fruitings) and produce their own edibles (the mushrooms) at different times of the year. Vegetables in summer, mushrooms in winter. Santa Cruz mountains are one of the few eco systems where I should be able to really make this work so I'm excited to try it. :)

I also recently learned that those big invasive brown garden snails are edible. >:D Do you like escargot? ... Though probably I'll just continue my snail re-location program. They're cute and I hate killing the little buggers. It's easier to just hurl them into the bushes.

[paka.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great plan, though. I don't know much about composting, sadly. That'd be great if you could pull it off... and I like escargot a lot. Remind me to tell you the snail-feast story sometime.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Mycologist, I once saw a picture of a bible which the caption on the picture claimed had been left in a crawl space beneath a house, a moist space with dripping pipes. The bible was covered in mushrooms, and it was pretty much the coolest picture of a book I've ever seen. Do you know of a species of mushroom that would survive on paper?

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

This picture? http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/CarGirl/MoldyBible.jpg

And yeah. There are lots of mushrooms that will grown on paper. It's just ground up wood after all.

If I spent enough time on it, I could possibly even identify the species from that photo (with a fairly large margin of error, of course)

Reddish-brown caps, white stems, fluffy mycelium, Looking at the ones turned sideways we can see most of them have a white margin. Gills white. Looks like there's probably a thin ring on the stipe. Lower part of the stipe is coarse looking, upper is smooth. Looking at the two open caps on the left, we can see that the gills are most likely andexed to free. Also, if you look very carefully at that one, you'll notice that on the stipe there's a patch that's darker than it should be for the lighting and we can see similar dark areas on the gills. Good indication of the spore print. I'll call that dark brown to purplish or black. Because of the bible, we also know the approximate size and get a rough idea of the moisture content.

Based on all that, they're most likely Stropharia aurantiaca or something similar. Sadly that means that much like the rest of the content of that book, they're indigestible and may cause stomach upset.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

That was the picture, yep!