Top Four Wild Mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Amélie Rousseau, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Hericium erinaceus 'Lion's Mane' via Wikimedia Commons

Mushrooms are intoxicating, literally. Some are full of poisonous toxins, while others smell of apricots, fresh seafood or simply the fresh rot of the forest floor. Yet we relish their meaty wildness, that fleeting savor found in a bite of venison back strap or a fresh-caught whole trout.

Mushrooming is a great day trip to do with kids of all ages. No equipment or hunting permit is necessary, but it is a good idea to bring a camera and a good mushroom identification book. David Arora’s Mushrooms, Demystified is a well-loved classic, but at 800 pages it can be a bit hefty to cart along (Ten Speed Press, 1986). Try Arora’s field guide All That the Rain Promises and More (Ten Speed Press, 1991.) To kick off the mushroom hunting season, GoLocalPDX brings you four species that are easy to find and identify.

When harvesting mushrooms, always cut mushrooms from their base with a pocket knife, ensuring that they’ll grow back next year. Don’t be a greedy goblin if you come across a patch of golden chanterelles in Forest Park; save some for other foragers. Then again, if it’s not a trafficked area, don’t be shy to eat them, as the mushrooms will soon rot away anyway. They might as well meet their delicious fate in a mess of melted butter, right? The one exception is on National Forest land, as any foraging is illegal.

Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus)

While climbing a peak by Waldo Lake this week, I came upon the most massive lion’s mane fungi I’d ever seen, about the size of a volleyball. Rejoice that the whole Hericium family are edible and cannot be mistaken for another variety of mushroom. White to pale yellow with delicate “icicle-like spines,” lion’s mane mushrooms grow on recently fallen hardwoods like oak or hemlock. Especially on very large specimens, the base is very fibrous; saw off the base carefully. When preparing, shave off the outer edges of the ‘mane’, as the white innards can sometimes be too chewy to be enjoyable. Use in a dish where you want to homogenize the mushroom into a dish, such as pasta sauce or a creamy wild mushroom soup.

Puffballs (Lycoperdale family)

The sexpots of the forest floor, these darling specimens look like little white breasts with a tan nipple on top. Puffballs grow about 2-3 inches tall in clumps out of the forest floor duff. Remember to slice them off the stalk. Refrigerate quickly as they will deteriorate rapidly. All puffballs should be white, solid, and firm. Don’t eat any that have turned green or yellow. Slice one open lengthwise to identify it as a true puffball and not a poisonous Amanita ‘egg’, which contain gills, cap and stalk inside. Puffballs should be dry sautéed whole with a bit of butter to appreciate their delicious, melt in your mouth texture: chewy on the outside, soft and squishy on the inside.

Lobster Mushrooms (Hypomyces lactifluorum)

Hypomyces lactifluorum 'Lobster Mushrooms' via Wikimedia Commons

The lobster mushroom is not actually a mushroom, but a parasite. This predacious fungi infects its host, twisting the host’s gills up into chanterelle-like frills. Strangely enough, with their white insides and bright crimson exterior, lobster fungi actually even taste fishy. How do they do that? These beauties hide halfway under the duff, so you’ll need an eagle eye on the trail to find these crustaceans of the forest.

Lobster mushrooms are meaty and hold up well when roasted or pan fried. Try thin slices in an omelet with fried dandelion greens and fresh jalapeño.

Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius)

Oregon’s chanterelles put the Pacific Northwest smack in the middle of the national foraging scene. These golden trumpets grow on a wide range of living trees, and often appear in giant clumps. Mushroom foraging guru David Arora writes, “Enormous quantities of chanterelles are gathered in the Pacific Northwest, brined and shipped to Germany--five million pounds annually!”

In French, a chanterelle is an ‘E’ string on a violin or viola, which serves as the last, or ‘finest’ string, as these golden mushrooms are buttery music on the tongue, notes held and savored by people throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Apparently Oregon State University had begun research to cultivate these prized fungi in greenhouses in the 90s, but no word on how that project piddled out (Charles Petit, 1997).

Try a homemade white pizza with roasted garlic, spinach, chanterelle slices on a layer of smoked mozzarella. Chanterelles do not dehydrate very well, but are delicious pickled, canned, or cooked and frozen in single-use freezer bags.

An urban farmer and master gardener, Amélie Rousseau writes for fellow explorers and eaters of the plant kingdom. It's a jungle out there.