Wild mushrooms

[Blizzard of '93]

Lots around this summer, very large 'hen of the woods' on the edge of my yard. Will parboil, slice, batter-dip and fry tomorrow with some venison skewer/kabobs and brown rice. :thumbsup:

 

[PreglerD]

Sounds good, will taste well!

Here in Germany I have many "Maronen" in my hunting ground, it is a mushroom with a beige timber and brown cap. Don't know the english name. Fried with butter or made in a mushroom soup with sour cream and "Knödel" is very tasty.

Kirrmeister

 

[PreglerD]

"Knödel"= dumplings

 

[graybeard]

Good Luck. I bought a book on mushrooms and it made me very, very wary of anything but white morels. They are very tasty and easy to recognise, but the season is past. graybeard

 

[Mad Professor]

Blizzard,

I've never seen the hens out here in New england until the beginning of Sept - Nov.

I collected over a hundred pounds last year and put them up either in my homemade spaggeti sauce or by thin slicing and dehydrating. The dehydrated ones get put in canning jars and I still have quite a few left.

Do you get chicken mushrooms too? They are my other favorite fall mushroom along with giant puffballs. I once found nearly an entire red oak blowdown covered with them. Must have been several hundred pounds just on the one tree. I didn't have anything top carry any home with so took off my shirt and filled it like a knapsack.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

'Hen of the woods' is very easy to recognize, as are 'tree oysters' and 'morels'. unfortunately there are some domed/gilled 'shrooms that are deadly -'destroying angel', 'death cap' (fly aminita), 'deadly leopard or panther'. I stay away from the domed/gilled ones although some of the pasture mushrooms are very desireable.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Prof - do you mean tree oyster 'shrooms? I gather them any time I find 'em.
the 'hen' is a ground 'shroom, usually fairly large. We also have the puffballs and I found about 5 lbs last year. Tasty.

 

[whitetrash078]

I agree with greybeard about only eating morel mushrooms. Many of the wild mushrooms are very deadly, and can result in liver failure. That being said my grandpa used to eat elephant ears and giant puffballs and never got poisoned from them. I like my morels thinly sliced and beer batter fried with catfish or crappie for breakfast. There is simply no better eating IMHO

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Wow, you are missing some very good eating. there is nothing better than venison in gravy with sauteed oyster 'shrooms. on rice or mashed taters.

 

[Mad Professor]

Blizzard,

The hens I find at the base of trees growing off the trees rootstock, usually oaks (looks like a brown chicken/partridge). I keep a log of where/when I find them as they resprout fom the same places year after year. I always leave enough for spores/propogation.

The chicken is a shelf mushroom which is bright orange sometimes called sulfur mushrooms. They always grow on decaying wood/blowdowns. Like the hen there are no poisionous lookalikes. When cooked they have the texture of white chicken meat. They dry well too and can be put up dehydrated. You have to find them ASAP as they get woody and tough quickly.

Sorry don't have any pics and the web links I had to pics seemed to have expired.

Good luck forageing!!!

MP

 

[Mad Professor]

Be careful with morels too, there is a poisonous false morel but they are USUALLY fall mushrooms not spring like true morels.

E.g. DO NOT eat anything looking like a morel in the fall.

 

[whitetrash078]

I am not sure if we have hen of the woods here in Kansas. I have seen what I thought were puff balls I have also seen what what I thought were elephant ears but had no way to ID said mushrooms so I let them be, better safe than sorry.

 

[buttonbuck]

had one last year the hen of the woods cooked it up with vension in a stroganoff, good eating, the morels did not do well this year. so I need to go hunting.

 

[Mad Professor]

I googled up a new link with some pictures of edible wild mushrooms I was describing:

edible wild mushroom pictures

 

[Jac Spring]

I wonder if the hen of the woods is what we called "goatsbeard" mushrooms in Iowa - so called because when you pulled it apart, the result looked like goatsbeards. They are good eating.

I live in TX now and no morrels - but my inlaws send some every year- really look forward to them. They are awsome.

 

[whitetrash078]

We have sulphur shelf mushrooms, around here we call them elephant ears. Thanks for the link for ID-ing the mushrooms. Next time I go out in the woods i'll keep my eyes open.

 

[romeoh]

:hmm: I´m not sure if we´re talking about the same mushroom.
But I think what´s here called "Fette Henne" (Fat hen) or sometimes "Krause Glucke" should be the same.

Didn´t know so far that it´s also growing in northern america. But from the description, unique look, big, growing on old wood and growing again on the same place (as long as carefully cut of) it could be this one, one of my favorites.

Many people don´t eat them here. I let them keep their habits. So there are more for me.
Biggest I found so far was about 7 lbs.
Tasty also when made the bavarian way as kirrmeister already described it.

I did a little websearch on the german names and found some pics:

Is that the one we´re talking about?

 

[Blizzard of '93]

It's very similar, romeoh. the one I have found is listed on the 'Mad Professor's link as 'hen of the woods' the particular one (evidently at least 3 genus's) that I found is the 3rd one with the dollar bill on top. And it's a large one so I'm going to freeze some of it for later use. I can understand why the Japanese call it the 'Dancing mushroom'. quite tasty, I may try 'Kirrmeister's' recipe for this one.
The one you picture looks like an especially tender one, lucky you. and thanks for the foto.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Thanks for the link, Prof. quite informative. Yes we have the 'sulfur shelf' here also but I've never seen it on decidious trees/logs. or at least didn't notice it. oysters are found in some quantity however. Uumm, good. along with the trumpets and puffballs these four are the ones I hunt mostly. I have made combo onion/shroom soup, tasty.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Just a generalization here - any woodsman that doesn't include wild mushrooms (or at least the easily identifiable ones) is missing some goumet eating. Big city chefs pay mucho dinero for wild ones. especially hens and oysters.