Food

[Henry Krinkle]

I love chanterelles! We collect a lot in late Autumn after the rains start. What host trees do yours grow under? Ours in the California coastal mountains tend to grow under live oak, and the tannic soil often gives them a slightly dirty flavor. The ones from Oregon and Idaho that I've collected have a much sweeter fruity flavor, and tend to grow under Douglas fir. The host tree makes a big difference in flavors.

Mixed birch and pine forests here, but the most important part of all is the caribou moss on the ground. If you eat chanterelles in The French Laundry chances are they came from northern Saskatchewan. We are reported to have some of the finest chanterelles in North America.

Do you like morels?

We are going to have a fantastic harvest next year.

[skywatch]

Do you like morels?

Absolutely love morels. We get the rare straggler black morel in early springtime right around the corner from our house, on a creek trail that cuts through the heart of Silicon Valley. We rarely get very cold winters, so they aren't common. They prefer the first warm days after the spring melt. I have found them in Minnesota while on tour, growing almost everywhere it seems, if you know where to look!

Around here I most often find some less-well known species that most people don't know to eat. These include blewits (Clitocybe nuda) black helvella (Helvella lacunosa) shaggy parasol (Lepiota rachodes) and shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus.)

Mycology is one of my stranger hobbies!

[meijlinder]

Mixed birch and pine forests here

Same mix as our woods here. Also plenty of chanterelle if you know where to look. Which unfortunately I don't.. Haven't familiarized myself enough with the forest here to find the good spots. Might have to bother one of the older residents in the neighborhood to inquire a bit.

Few things as nice as chanterelles just sautéed in some butter. Or simply pickled for that matter.

[geoffbot]

I absolutely love all mushrooms.

[skywatch]

I absolutely love all mushrooms.

I have fond memories of the sort that stain blue, back in my university days. Been a few decades now, I rather miss them.

[geoffbot]

I have fond memories of the sort that stain blue, back in my university days. Been a few decades now, I rather miss them.

Ha! I was in Amsterdam last year

[CanadianStraps]

I like cooked mushrooms, but people that eat them raw have a crossed wire somewhere. Ugh. Even back in my days with the magical variety, I would steep them into a tea and drink it as fast as humanly possible, doing everything in my power not to taste anything. Then chug a beer or something.

I get all kinds of mushrooms on my acreage north, and I have no less than 2 large and detailed publications on mushrooms, but I can never bring myself to eat them. Always positive that I'll be the first to discover mushrooms so poisonous that your genitals erupt into flames from looking at the the wrong way, and they look exactly like chantrelles or whatever. I have eaten chicken of the woods found on my property before, but I pass on that more often than not as well. I do, however, have a recently discovered abundance of chaga, and that stuff is valuable. I've done lots of harvesting, and have explored a few avenues for selling it.

[geoffbot]

Yeah raw mushrooms aren't great. Then neither are raw carrots, courgettes or aubergine. Cooked they're great through. Magic ones taste horrible though - truly horrific.

[meijlinder]

Then neither are raw carrots,

Large woody carrots aren't nice raw but the fresh, young kind is great. Just out the soil, a good rinse and then that nice crunch..

[Seriously]

Magic ones taste horrible though - truly horrific.

Wrap them (dried ones) in a thin cigarette paper and swallow



.......I've been told