Thursday, 14 May 2009
Mushrooms
What's this I see as I drive down the road on a gray and drizzle-y day?
A superb chicken of the woods mushroom! Finish my errand,
drive back home. Collect bags & basket & knife, and Paul as photographer.
Photograph Credit Paul Glattstein, 2009, all rights reserved.
Chicken of the woods is a lovely, easy-to-identify mushroom.
Aromatic and delicious, it is best harvested young. But then, foraging
means you get what you find. Or find what you get. Whatever.
The tender edges are excellent sauteed, the middle bits of the shelf
can be braised, and the tougher portions closest to the tree can be used
to make a nice mushroom flavored broth. My freezer is now well stocked.
.
I didn't collect all that was growing. To do so would be . . . . . choose a term -
impolite, discourteous, improper - why take more than I can use. I did share
with Carol, who taught me about foraging for mushrooms, with Bea and Jerry,
and with my veterinarian. It was amusing when I said, "Suzanne! Mushrooms!"
As I was waving a shelf of bright orange chicken of the woods around, explaining
about the tender bits and what you could braise and which gets used for stock
suddenly everyone who was at the animal hospital at day's end to retrieve
their pets came crowding round. One woman asked if I grew the mushrooms.
"No," I say, " I found them." Her eyes widened and she asked
"You mean, growing in the woods?" Yup, just love to go foraging.