I am not a mushroom expert by any stretch of the imagination. However, there are a few edible species that I can recognize and am really good at finding. This past week I have been obsessively gathering and eating chanterelles.Chanterelles taste delicious when cooked. Raw, they don't have much flavor although they do exude a fruity aroma. They are very easy to cook with. A few minutes in a frying pan with some butter or oil and they are ready to add to any meal. I've been eating them in omelets and scattered over steak, but also slumming it and using them to improve twenty five cent packets of ramen noodles.
Before eating any wild mushroom it is important to learn not only what your intended meal looks like, but also the finer points of how to distinguish it from any other species with a similar appearance. In the case of chanterelles the deciding factor for their identification is usually the distinctive appearance of the underside.
The mushroom on the right in this photograph that I took a few days ago is a chanterelle. The one on the left is not. Both are yellowish mushrooms with convex caps that looked very similar from above, but note that the one on the left has true gills that are discrete structures attached to the bottom of the cap. The chanterelle features 'false gills', which are really just very deep wrinkles. Also notice how the false gills run down into the stem rather than stopping abruptly.
When chanterelles come up after a rain, they seem to do so in force. You probably won't be able to eat all that you gather before they spoil. I have found that they freeze very well. Spread them out on a baking sheet and put that in the freezer until the mushrooms are solid. Then transfer them to a sealed bag or other container.
Tip of the hat to my friend Abe from Oregon, who identified some of my mushroom pictures on Facebook and started me on a chanterelle obsession.
[Photograph copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved]
0 comments:
Post a Comment