Mushroom Hunting

Preparing a meal with wild mushrooms that you picked with your own two hands is a deliciously gratifying experience. Many prized varieties, including morels, chanterelles, wood ears and oysters, grow in abundance across the United States. So instead of spending a fortune on a few wimpy specimens or some dehydrated space food, take a relaxing walk through the woods and find yourself a fresh feast of fungi.

Morels tend to grow around the base of trees.

Of course, consuming wild mushrooms can be dangerous, even lethal, if you cannot adequately distinguish the edible from the poisonous. Although there's no single, easy method for discerning fungi friends from foes, if you familiarize yourself with the varieties in your area and learn how to identify them, you can safely collect wild mushrooms and bring them to your dinner table. 

Chanterelles like mossy, coniferous forests.

Before you head out into the woods, purchase a mushroom identification book with spore prints and full descriptions. Focus at first on the most common edible mushrooms and the most deadly varieties, especially the Death Cap and the Destroying Angel.

After you've gained a little knowledge, it's a good idea to go on a foraging expedition with an expert mushroom hunter or a foraging group. They'll be able to show you the best places to start your search, and they will be able to point out mushrooms to avoid. Search for mycological societies in your area: they frequently offer beginner courses on mushroom hunting, and they're almost always excited to see a new face.

Oyster mushrooms are some of the few known carnivorous fungi.

When you're out on the prowl, always practice safe and proper collection techniques: wear gloves, avoid rubbing your eyes or lips, and use a walking stick to gently push aside foliage, trying not to disturb local flora and fauna. When you find a mushroom, cut it with a knife and make a note of where you found it, including what it was growing on. Some poisonous mushrooms closely resemble edible varieties, and you may need information about its habitat to distinguish it. Try to select young, fresh mushrooms without insect damage: older mushrooms can change color, making them harder to identify correctly. Carry your mushrooms in a porous sack or a basket so that the spores can leak out and grow a future fungal generation. If you are foraging with a group, let others know when you find a mushroom trove - it's proper etiquette.

Never try to identify mushrooms in the field. Instead, bring them home and compare your live specimens to the pictures in your field guide, consulting the descriptions to match the habitat of the mushrooms you found. In the beginning, it's safest to show your mushrooms to a mushroom expert - even if that means sending a picture through email. As you continue to see and hunt mushrooms, you will learn how to recognize safe and unsafe varieties.

If you're having trouble identifying a mushroom, make a spore print by cutting off the stem of the mushroom and put the cap gill-side-down on a sheet of white paper with a sheet of black paper taped to the back. Cover the cap with a jar or a bowl and let it sit for 12 hours. The spores will settle, and you will be able to see their color, which you can match to the spores in your field guide.

For the serious mushroom lovers out there, consider growing your own mushrooms. Several companies have begun selling spore starter kits - all you need is a dark, damp place and a nice moldy log.