This Saturday found me out on another mushroom hunt with my daughter and some long-time mushroom hunting friends. After a coffee cake brunch, we headed for the hills with our baskets, bags and a whole passel of girls. Although the area we went appeared to be recently picked, I found some of my best Chanterelle finds in some out of the way spots where nobody had looked. For some reason, this part of the Coast Range doesn’t seem to have a wild amount of mycological diversity. There are however, abundant Chanterelles, both orange and white, which are really the best and safest bet for picking with kids anyway. They are easily identifiable, have few look-alikes that are also easily identifiable, and with their bright colors, they are pretty easy to spot.
It is always important to have a good mushroom ID guide along when out picking, and we pulled ours out to ID this Bolete we found. I have a policy to not eat a mushroom I don’t feel I know very well, so we left the potential Butter Bolete, and went on our way.
I did branch out a bit and tried these Shaggy Parasols that we found in our friends yard on our return from the woods. This was only after careful ID by three adults with mushroom guides, an overnight spore print to be sure, and a taste test by one of us. I must say, that this was one of the best mushrooms I’ve tried. And they grow right in my friend’s yard!
I ended up with a decent haul of good sized white and orange Chanterelles. Since I’ve found over the years I enjoy them more fresh than dried, I try to only pick an amount I can eat in a week or share with friends.
The girls had a wonderful time discovering the super powers of mushrooms. It’s great to be in the company of other folks who have such fun with fungi.
As for myself, I happily soaked in the riches of good friends and good fungi.
Give thanks for abundance.
Sounds like an excellent trip! Which field guide do you use?
My friend Patrick had along the Audobon Society field guide. I usually carry "All the Rain Promises and More" because it is so compact. At my friend John's house, we used "Mushrooms Demystified" to ID the shaggy parasol. Between all of us, we had a whole library!
Beautiful mushrooms! My two girls (2 and 6 yo) and I just went mushroom hunting (for chanterelles) for the first time ourselves a couple of weeks ago. Such fun, and so good to experience the abundance of wild food…I just stumbled across your blog for the first time and have to say I am really enjoying it. We live in NE Portland, are slowly developing our own tiny urban homestead, homeschool in our own extra-naturey Waldorfy way (permaculture-infused), get outdoors as much as possible, generally revere and experience the natural world as much as possible. So, it's good to find folks like you! What region of Oregon do you live in?
It is wonderful to know that folks like you are out there reading along and that more kids are growing up to be wildcrafters! I used to live in Portland, and really enjoyed all the surrounding outdoor places to visit. My little homestead is in the Eugene area, so I'm sure you will find a lot of plants and places familiar.