The gourmet mushrooms of forest and field 2008

[cereus]

I guess some of you say "o no now the crazy guy from Norway is going on about those boring edible mushrooms again" (or may be not;) ), it's just that it is just as natural to the psychedelic mind to want to connect with nature in more ways than the strong psychedelic way. I have been out communing with the forest again and the forest has provided an absolute treat to the gourmet, and has ensured that the coming munchies will be satisfied fore a long time. last year yielded poor findings, but this year promises to be a great mushroom season. The forest in my area is filed with all kinds of mushrooms I find lots of different common and even rear mushrooms. The last tree weeks has seen an explosion in the forest and it is pure joy to see all the different species fruiting. every thing seems to pop up at ones, I only hope it lasts. I have some more trips to do before I have every thing I want in my store room.

Here is some pictures of the last weekend's catch, and it contains one rear treat, the black trumpet mushroom, my wife also found some blood or king Agaricus (not in the picture) and I have seen many other agaricus but they have been growing by the road side so I did not pick them.

Please post some pictures of the mushrooms you guys and girls pick for the frying pan or gourmet sauce. it would be interesting to see what people pick in other countries.

[Meatloaf J. Sasquatch]

Wow, those mushrooms are incredible! The chanterelles look amazing, and the trumpets look more amazing! Mother nature is taking good care of you this year man!

Cubes are popping up everywhere in the southern US, have you had any luck with those this year?

[Lethal_Hobo]

mmmm you're making me hungry!

How did you start your awareness of all these types of edible mushrooms? did you start by simply identifying mushrooms you were able to find? or did you take a short course on mushrooms native to your area?

[Ostritt]

So wait... they don't make you trip??? :confused::confused::confused: Why didn't you just burn them on sight?

:rolleyes: Just joking, they look tasty and if I were more myco-aware I would pick some of those beauties... what is the main nutritional value in mushrooms generally, as in protein, carbohydrates etc?

[max_freakout]

is Norway a mycophilic culture?

[Star]

I used to work with a girl from Norway who said as a child she used to go out into the forest with her mother to pick edible mushrooms for a stew. Her testimony always made me believe that Norway and probably other Scandinavian countries are mycophilic.

[cereus]

We have people that are mycofobes also, but I wold say that a great many people in Scandinavia have a growing culture when it comes to mushrooms and other things from nature. Many pick berry's in the forest, blue berry's, cloud berry's and others, hunting is popular of course as is fishing, and there is an great fauna of medicine plants. The lore of such things is still strong at least where I come from. I guess we still remember times when all there was to live on was what nature provided, and then you have to be creative. The good thing about this is that there is gourmet food growing right out side your door If you know what to look for.

How I got interested in these things, well the seeds was lain in my childhood as I come from a farm (and plan on returning). We used to go out to the forest in the fall to harvest from nature, not as the necessity of my ancestors, but as the treat it is to have fresh food without artificial taste. we made jam's, tea's, mushroom stews, and many other things. and filled the freezer with many berry's, fruits, fish, and meat some from the farm, some from forest and some from the sea. I tell you I remember the times when returning cold from the forest, it was already dark when we came home, my mother made some cocoa and coked up some great mushroom stew, those were great times.

And then I was growing up and as things go I was not that interested anymore, that was until I met the green goddess, and realised that nature provided a medicine so powerful, then I started to be interested again, and to educate my self and I started to grow things. You can imagine my father wondering what got in to the Lacy long hared son sowing basil, oregano, cilantro and some other herbs out in the kitchen garden. and after some time the green house started smelling funny. and another thing happened I met another entity out in nature they were small and tasted funny but wow they talked more to me than the green goddess had. as it is now I firmly believe that my meting them made me dig out much more information than I would have if I did not, an they do both communicate with us.

Now I am giving my children some of the same great experiences I had as a child, I hope they may keep the love for nature when they grow up. And when they get in to the teens and start experimenting, as I did, I will be more educated than my parents and so be more able to lead them on the right paths toward adult hood.

Hope that answered all the questions ;)

[cereus]

Well I have been out hunting for gourmet treats again and this time I found some interesting things, and almost made a lethal mistake. I found some wild button mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) and when walking in an other location I piked up some thing that looked like a button mushroom, but something made me cautious and I put it aside where it could not mix with the others, and I then went on to fill the basket with other safe mushrooms. when I got home I decided to make a spore print to bee sure of what it was I had found, and I fully expected a dark spore print, but to my horror it turned out to be a white print. so It may be the dreaded white fly agaric (Amanita. Phalliodes) I am not sure as it did not have the typical agaric features. anyway scary.

But the rest of the basket is tasty treats and even some rear ones especially the grey trumpet mushroom (pseudocraterellus undulatus), a close relative of the black trumpet mushroom (horn of plenty) I actually believed when I was piking it that it was a different form of the common trumpet chantrell(Cantharellus infundibuliformis) as I was piking it in as leaf forest rather than a pine forest, and it turns out to be two different species. and its always fun to find the parasol mushrooms, this time it was the reddening type, but the favourite is the large parasol, when you see it the first time you almost can not believe it's so big.

[Ostritt]

Now I am giving my children some of the same great experiences I had as a child, I hope they may keep the love for nature when they grow up. And when they get in to the teens and start experimenting, as I did, I will be more educated than my parents and so be more able to lead them on the right paths toward adult hood.

That's awesome man, I'm sure they'll keep the connection. Have good hunting! Btw. Do you have psilocybe semilanceata in Norway, or any other psilocybin mushrooms??

[itchyboy1]

Norwegian wood, isn't it good, isn't it good:D

[cereus]

That's awesome man, I'm sure they'll keep the connection. Have good hunting! Btw. Do you have psilocybe semilanceata in Norway, or any other psilocybin mushrooms??

Yes there is liberty caps growing here, my first experiences with entheogens other than cannabis was with freshly piked Semilianceata, just love them. There is also others growing here although they are hard to find or not "active" members of the Psilocybe family.I think there is at least five Psilocybe variety's and a number of Panaleus variety's, and of course this is just those growing out in nature;). But there is always the Fly agaric amanita muskaria and it is growing every where and as you imagine it is not difficult to spot, I have not gotten to try it yet but it holds some fascination to me, so maybe one day if it calls to me.

[cereus]

I want to describe of one of the more esoteric methods of finding mushrooms that I frequently use, I guess that this will work with all kind mushroom hunting and maybe also for hunting plants (and animals).

When I enter a promising forest with my basket and knife, I get in to this altered state of mind, I become the hunter, and I spot the mushrooms from long distances. but some times I do not find any interesting ones or just a hand full, that is when I do my special ritual.
I find a big tree and give an offering of water from my body (piss:o) and ask the forest/tree/mushrooms to guide me to the nearest patch of choice mushroom, almost without fail this actually works.
For instance last time I was out in to a new forest I was only finding un edible and poisonous mushrooms, I do the ritual and ask for guidance. I sip up and picture in my mind the ones I would like to find, and then a bird calls to my left and this is a clear sign, and of I go, after walking trough thick forest a Little vile I see the first mushroom and as I see it I sit down and scan the ground around it and the part of the forest i had entered was filed with edibles of many kinds.:D

Some times the forest is not so talkative or it has to use other methods to communicate, as when I found the grey trumpets. I had not found much mushrooms in this forest it was a leaf forest, so I do my thing and this time I picture in my mind black trumpet mushrooms, mostly because my other findings have been in similar woods and also I want to find more of them. well the forest was quiet no bird call, no shining path, just the path I was on to walk and I started to believe I had to go home empty handed this time, but after I had been walking a Little wile quietly asking the forest for guidance, I notice this Little patch of forest that kind of stands out from the rest of the surroundings. I know this to be a possible sign from the forest and rightly after carefully examining the forest floor I find thees Little almost invisible mushrooms spread out every where in this Little patch. I must say I was so thankful to the forest, and I do believe that to give water to the forest in reverence is a way to say thanks in advance, it is the most valuable thing we can give it.

It pays to be respectful to the environment you hunt in, and to pay attention to those little hints that nature gives to the seeker.

[roger_irrelevant]

Cereus I wonder how often do you often revisit locations that you have had success.
I found a very special connection with a wood close to where I used to live. I would walk there day or night, straight or high. These woods would whisper my name which in the beginning was scary as hell but then became comforting. I have noticed the energy of the place has shifted and I somehow don't feel as welcome as I once did. There are more people walking the paths of this place now and overall the plants and trees are less abundant than they used to be. Few berries, chestnuts, mushrooms so it's not just some kind of blight that the trees are experiencing, there is more going on here.
I'm certainly not saying I'm psychic in any way, I don't usually feel/experience peoples energies/auras or anything like that but I'm an earth sign and I do feel a stange calm in woodland.

Anyway great harvest pics there. Have you ever tried puffballs? I found them to be almost like scrambled eggs. Yum.

[bigdirtyfoot]

those pictures are so cool! i'm fascinated by wild edible mushrooms but don't know enough about them to go search for a harvest. i would most likely end up poisoning myself by accident. more pics please though man!

[cereus]

Now the season is definitively over and it have been about on month since I went mushroom hunting mostly because I have enough to last me until next season an late in the season it is mostly trumpet chantrels and they I have really to much of. I have some times thought I could sell them they are so abundant sometimes that I must leave the forest because I can not carry any more in the basket.

As for beginners It is not difficult to learn but it takes dedication and an interest to master. first get a good local mushroom book maybe even a beginners guide to mushroom piking. or get to know some of the locals that know about mushrooms, there is some enthusiasts every were and most likely a club or something you can become member of. Then you learn about one or two mushrooms that is safe, easy and abundant in your area and the next season you learn about one or two more. be sure, be safe, and enjoy.

puff balls yes I have tried one kind don't remember the Latin name, but it looks like a pear with lots of nipples, it is not the best mushroom (one star) but it is abundant and safe. I have yet to find the real puffballs.

O got to go I wan to say more about the forest and feeling at home there but it must wait

[S.S.Muldoon]

Thanks for your posts Cereus, your children will be quite blessed to have a father so able and willing to pass on his knowledge of things natural.
There is a huge Polish and Lithuanian community in Chicago and there are many mushroom hunting clubs here, but I've never checked them out since I didnt want to be the guy asking questions about the illegal 'shrooms. But reading about your being connected to nature that way makes me want to at least give it a try. BTW there are mushrooms around here called jack-o-lanterns that are phosporescent! Glow in the dark shrooms! Why dont they cross breed those with P cubensis so you wont even have to turn on the light to find your stash? ;)

[Podders]

Wow, how did I miss this thread, great pictures man.
Here in Spain there's also a big culture of picking mushrooms, I'm a bit of a beginner, it's funny when I see a neighbour coming home with tasty one's and you ask where they found them they ALWAYS point in the opposite direction :)
Podders

[cereus]

I definitively guard my best spots from others like the one site where I in prime years can harvest half a basket of black trumpets in half an hour. others I share willingly because the mushrooms growing there is so abundant and easy to find.

I have yet to experience the fluorescent mushrooms, I have only read about them in P. Stamets books. Yes a definitive deed that needs to be done, breed a semilianceata strain with a fluorescent light. but alas it is but a dream and not really necessary, if they want to bee seen they are every were and if they want to hide they are no where.