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We
gave up our expectations…
identified traditionally overlooked edibles and had a great
learning year in the kitchen. Here’s a look back on what was
found and preserved.
Morel season was
looking so good with rains leading up to their much anticipated
appearance… and then things began to go wrong. Dry weather,
odd temperatures, late season rains all contributed to very few
preserved Morels.
Ok, in
Eastern PA
, I accept that finds may be a
little
smaller than those of our brethren to the west.
As Chanterelle season neared, I cleaned and prepared my extra big
basket and gave the dog extra patience training. It’s rough on
a Chesapeake Bay Retriever to travel a long way only to spend
hours in a small patch of woods. The extra training proved
unnecessary as each hopeful trip provided more miles of crispy
dry open forest floor for the dog to enjoy. One trip only turned
up the now very dry mushrooms found a few weeks before. We dug
into stored mushroom reserves for the Tasting
and put on a brave face, but my mushroom mojo was in crisis.
In the mountains,
the summer seemed to get hotter and drier. Here in the Pequea
Valley, rains came just enough when needed making for another
terrific corn crop. Local
gardens were a little dry so my Amish neighbors had fewer corn
smut ears for me.
The hot
weather, bountiful garden and corn brought out my inner Mexican.
Kathy and I made fresh corn Tamales
(uchepos)
which call for the
starch of field corn. If the Wanners read this, I owe you for
six ears.

We removed and lightly processed the kernels before wrapping and
steaming the Tamales in the fresh green husks. In August we put
on a mega Mexican dinner for our old gang, serving several
Moles, Swiss chard Tamales, refried beans from scratch, Mexican
rice dishes, traditional fresh and cooked salsas and of course,
my favorite pickled Chipotle
morita. The mega dinner called for a mega clean up and I was
moving
slowly
the next morning when I
looked out to see Paul Good’s truck pulling up the studio
drive. It was August
and really hot. Paul, listing to one side from the weight of his
enormous basketful of Leccinum insigne, left us with 4 pounds.
Re-energized, we
got back out there and produced 3 more pounds giving us ½ pound
dried total.

On September 1st the club hosted Leon Shernoff
Mushroom
The Journal at Middle Creek where he
introduced our foray finds like old friends.
No identification books required.
Leon
was no stranger to edible Russulas,
at his recommendation we adjusted our radar for Russulas mariae, aeruginea, variata, olivacea.
We met the Dawsons at
Clark’s Valley the next day. Our exploratory foray yielded quite a
few of these Russulas although most specimens were past their
prime. We sautéed them until crisp, cooked them with eggs and enjoyed
wild mushrooms. Next year we’ll pay more attention to their
season and test out some preservation techniques.
September may
have broken the mushroom drought, but not everywhere and not in
real quantities.
Forays on the Welsh
Mountain turned up various Russulas,
Amanitas, Boletes, Calvatia and a beautiful Sparassis Crispa which we preserved with a pickling technique. I
wasn’t very happy with the results. Sparassis are delicate and
become limp if cooked too long.


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By
the end of September we were back in very dry conditions. Our
tasting event at the Miknis foray
depended once again
mostly on stored mushrooms.
Our offerings were oriented
to the Italian dinner served by Kings Gap that evening. Special
thanks again to Cathy Cholmeley-Jones for her perfect
Chicken of the Woods.
.
Cathy cut up her Laetiporus
sulphureus
specimen into bite-sized pieces, she then blanched
them for a few minutes in chicken stock before freezing. Special
Thanks also to Bob Hosh of N.J.MA. for preparing his wonderful
Paprikash.
Despite dry conditions, we had some success at Marysville. I
decided to try a quantity of
Lycoperdon pyriforme.

Despite its choice rating by some, I found them completely
tasteless, having a disturbing gum like texture. Well seasoned
and well ground they thickened a stew nicely.
The last days of October through December 1st were
our most productive. Following the club’s exploratory foray at
Clark’s Valley, we found Suillus
americanus
and Coprinus comatus at several
locations on the way home. Over the next 3 to 4 days, we
found 3 grocery bags
full of S. americanus,
brevipes, granulatus, and I’m sure a couple more species.

Some of these had
seen too much rain, some were too buggy. We removed the slimy
cuticle and the soggy pore surface from all of them before
drying the flesh. We ended up with a quart of dried Suillus.
In 2006, we
cooked down extra Coprinus comatus in some butter
before freezing it for a few months.
I felt the quality suffered slightly but the mushroom was
preserved for later use. We found 4 pounds on October 28th.
3 pounds made it to the freezer; they will be on menu for the
2008 winter meetings.
As most of us know,
it was a weak year for finding Hens. Grifola frondosa
seemed to
give up in the hot dry weather. I was surprised by one 21 pound
specimen at Susquehannock on November 18th. I gave it
extra blanching time because of its age. I was able to freeze 17
pounds for events. We ended up the year with sporadic Blewit
finds until the morning of December 1st when we
located 4 mostly frozen pounds under Norway Spruce. We worked like mad to clean, slice and jamb 3
pounds into our drier. The end result; ½ pound.

Iend with some cautionary culinary information gleaned from our
more current identification books and the featured site on our
resource page: mushroomexpert.com.
Due to the lack of more commonly collected species
this year, I became interested in the fall edibles described by
Jack Czarnecki in Joe’s Book of Mushroom Cookery." Joe",
romantically describes basketfuls of pine scented Tricholomas in the mountains North of Reading. Believe me, I
wanted that experience. With Paul’s help, we got into the
right place
this fall and picked a
piney basketful. Unfortunately, after careful review, my basket
of Tricholoma
flavovirens/equestre ended up on my mulch pile .In addition, I was surprised to find a caution regarding mature
specimens of Grifola
frondosa. It appears some people have allergic reactions to
them (including Michael Kuo). I have served them in all states
of maturity to the club without any reactions to the best of my
knowledge. If any members recall a reaction, I’d like to know
about it please. --Chris |