I have long been an advocate of hunting wild mushrooms. I was introduced to wild mushrooms by my grandma Shambo. We went looking in the cow pastures for the common agaricus bisporus, white field mushroom. Grandma new her mushrooms and they were delicious. My dad mentioned that her test for a poisonous mushroom was to expose it to a silver coin. While this method can detect sulphur-based poisons, it does exclude other toxic mushrooms.
(Agaricus bisporus is an edible basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Europe and North America. It has two color states while immature—white and brown—both of which have various names. When mature, it is known as portobello mushroom (also portabella or portobella).) Wikipedia
Rain has come to the Santa Barbara area and not long after the mushrooms have started to appear. I am hoping for a flush of California Chanterelles in the next week or so. We found maybe 6 chanterelles last year due to the extended drought. They were small and in a micro climate area that concentrated what little rain we had.
There was a rather odd piece in the local paper today that warns of picking the more deadly variety of amanitas, the amanita phalloides (death cap) and amanita ocreata (destroying angel). These twins of death destroy liver function and are almost always deadly. If you pick and consume or or given wild mushrooms you must be an expert or consult with one! In Europe you can take your harvest to a pharmacy and have them identified. We have no such luck here. In our area I have found a number of great edibles, bears paw, oyster, chanterelle, puff balls, morels, bluets, fairy ring to name a few.
Identifying mushrooms involves the obvious physical traits such as shape, color, and aroma. Also time of year, growing media, spore print. This is not a casual business. The old saying goes, "There are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters but no Old-Bold mushroom hunters."
Chef Michael Hutchings
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