Mycelium Season

Someone told me that even here in the Willamette Valley people have been killed over mushroom territory disputes.  While I highly doubt that anyone has actually been shot, as the story goes, it intrigues me that mushrooms, which are growing across the planet in startling abundance, should inspire such violence in humans.  While I do love a little wild mushroom sauteed up with my cultivated ones, it's hard to imagine that mycelia are in short enough supply to make humans become so territorial over their foraging secrets.  I know that some mushrooms are more rare than others, the truffle being one of them, but surely there are plenty of amazing tasting varieties to tempt us that we can all forage with cooperation?

I have a hankering to go mushroom foraging.  My good friend Riana is busy drying the abundance of mushrooms she's foraged and in other places across the net I see evidence of happy mycelia loot being cheerfully shown.  Here in my area there is certainly good mushroom hunting to be had.  A restaurant in Dundee was even inspired by the chef's love of them and the menu changes seasonally with what he can get his hands on.  I've never been because it is, as you can imagine, a rather pricey place to eat.

I have heard of people gathering baskets of morels and chanterelles here and I want in on the secret to identifying and locating where they like to grow.  Wild mushrooms on their own are a little strong for me but mixed with very mild white button or criminis the wild mushrooms lend a depth of pleasing earthy flavor that can stand up to any dish.  Naturally, I have a favorite. 

Ever since taking the Master Gardening course in which we were introduced to "Dog Vomit" (a slime mold) I have kept my eyes alive to the rich assortment of strange fungi and molds that thrive in my damp climate.

In France pharmacists are trained to identify mushrooms so you can take your basket of foraged mushrooms in to be inspected by an expert mycologist and be confident in what you take home to eat.  Why don't we have a service like that here?  It seems so practical and smart to have our medicine dispensing people able to prevent us from accidentally ingesting poisonous plants.  There are times when I think France is doing it all right.  I realize that the bureaucracy there is pretty intense.  I know from all that I've read that it can take months to get done what it would take only weeks to accomplish here.  But their health care is fantastic* and their pharmacists are trained mycologists.  That's pretty damn cool.

Even though French people have access to mushroom experts, about 30 people die of mushroom poisoning in France a year.  I imagine the numbers would be much higher here in the states (per capita, anyway).  I remember hearing that at least one person dies in Sonoma county every year from accidentally eating poisonous foraged mushrooms.  That's just one county.  The United States is huge. 

I saw a mushroom book at my local book store that I want to get.  I suppose I'll put it on my Christmas list with a new heavy duty stock pot.

I don't know what the mushroom in the picture is but I saw it in the hazelnut orchard down the street.  I'm sure it isn't edible but I can't help but be entranced by all mushrooms.  There's something so sweet about the way they pop up all over the world sometimes like happy little penises and sometimes like little fleshy buttons on hopeful stems.  The variation is astonishing and their lives above ground are so fleeting.  Most of the year they develop and grow and thrive where we can't see them, just underneath the soil. 

I am still thinking about creating some various mushroom environments in my damp yard.  Why not take advantage of my climate and the shady corners of my yard to invite edible mushrooms in to spread themselves?  I don't know a lot yet but you can inoculate logs with mushroom spores.  They like a pile to grow in.  Semi rotted is ideal.  If I experience any success at all I will absolutely share it with you.

I can't help but think about how the skill of foraging for wild mushrooms is one of those things like sewing and preserving food, building shelter, and making our own medicines that has been fading from our general consciousness but are the things we may desperately need to know in a bleaker future where food prices continue to rise, famine increases, and resources shrink.  I don't take an interest in foraging mushrooms because I have an apocalyptic turn of mind, in fact I don't really think it's going to be as bleak as some fear, but I do it because it feels good when I know things.  It feels good when I become more skilled in the basics of living and doing for myself.  How can it not be empowering to go out into the forest with a basket and come back with a basketful of food that is nutritious and abundant? 

These are happy thoughts for me.  I don't know why I must always sound so melancholy when I write here.  I suppose if I kept a private journal like I used to I wouldn't need to share so much of the gloom.  It must be expressed but perhaps it doesn't need to be expressed to you all quite so often.  I'm not sentimental exactly but that I have a real melancholy streak in my writing is plain where most of my memories are sad ghosts.  I wish to linger more often on my cheerful spazzy excitement of the world around me.  The happy food discoveries.  The music that makes me want to run around ripping cobwebs down. 

The day I took this picture of the mushroom in the orchard was such a fine one- I got fresh air and crunched hazelnuts** under my feet while throwing broken branches for my dog and chatting with my sister and my mother.  I noticed the mosses and fungi and the rotting leaves in high relief.  Yes, there is melancholy in abundance in my spirit, but also there is this wonderful climate I live in which affords me so much happiness and this old house with all its creaks and problems (shower upstairs is leaking into the office downstairs) and the lack of funds for some important things, yet we're living a pretty damn rich life with our pantry fairly full.

I will learn mushrooms eventually and take part in the great fall gathering with nose to damp earth, with eyes searching shadowy chilly crevices, and hands ready to dig out of the humus the great gifts of the forest.  I will see if the community center or the local Junior College have any mycelia identification and gathering classes.  If not- onto the books!





*Not everyone in France necessarily agrees but the people I know who have had good experiences there are American expats who grew up with our "system" to compare to.  Evidently there is no comparison.   

**I will go collect what I can for my friend Lila in Florida for an exchange of good things.  She can't get local hazelnuts and I can't get local citrus.  Although eating locally is my ideal, the exchange of precious treats with friends and family far away is a lost treasure.  It's how most of us used to get our hands on exotic ingredients that our own climates can't create.  So if sometimes you want imported goodies, do an exchange with a friend so that the miles the goods cross are more personal and carry with them not only treats but expressions of friendship as well.