MUSHROOMS ARE COMING!
"Yup," says Mr. Vintage Morels, spokesmushroom for this blog. “Already here! These guys are my cousins. Look at ‘em, eat ‘em. Some are prettier than morels, like me, but none are tastier —I know!”
GREAT TO EAT
At the Diablo Valley farmers market, here in Walnut Creek, California, cultivated mushrooms have been for sale for weeks now. They can be purchased by the pound.
At the Walnut Creek farmers market nearby, cultivated mushrooms have also been for sale for weeks now by the pound.
GREAT TO LOOK AT
On Sunday, January 20, the San Francisco Chronicle declared this has been a banner year for wild mushrooms. Check out the pic of this guy just below . . . .
These gigantic toxic beauties appeared in the East Bay, near San Francisco, recently, says the newspaper. They were about calf-high, had their ruby-colored caps that were dotted with yellowish warts and the size of a salad plate. It has already been a banner year for mushroom enthusiasts around warmer, wetter parts of the U.S. such as Northern California, declared the Chronicle.
The danger and elusiveness are a part of the mystique of mushrooms. For example, “fairy rings” are a circle of mushrooms. In folklore, fairy rings have been considered dangerous places to enter. Witches danced and demons spoiled milk there. Whoa! Serious stuff! Other legend holds the circle of mushrooms has also been a harbinger of fertility and good fortun.
The appearance mushrooms roughly follows a season, depending on the amount of rain and nighttime low temperatures. October begets porcini. November, death caps. December-January, black trumpets, hedgehogs and winter chanterelles.
This January, the San Francisco area has had sprinkles, but no significant rain. As for the colder climes across the U.S., the mushrooms may be coming, too.
GREAT MORELS
With a wet winter and a damp spring, this year is turning out to be a relatively good year in California for finding one of the most sought after edible mushrooms in the world: The Morel. There are many places to find morels in the Bay Area and understanding these organisms is key to having a chance at finding them.
There are some 100 species of morels worldwide and 10+ in California, according to iNaturalist. Morels are most common in moist warm weather. The mushroom is just the fruiting body of the fungus. The rest of the year the fungus just hides out.
Usually the earliest morel is commonly known as the “blushing morel” or the “wood chip morel” due to its proclivity to spring up in mulched areas and its pale color with sometimes pinkish tones. They can occur as early as this month after a few warm days and can be easily found into late May.
Another morel found in urban mulched landscaping has overall a much darker complexion. It can also be found in local areas such as trails where roots are exposed and in recently burned areas where morels feast on available wood.
The morels that grab the headlines in California are the morels found right after a fire has ravaged an area. But they can also be found in lush green wooded areas. Such is the case in the midwest and the southeast, where I’ve hunted morels, first while crawling on my hands and knees through the underbrush around the inner city lakes in Minneapolis. To this very day, those “vintage” morels from the 1970s, as I think of them, are in my kitchen, not to be eaten but to represent an adventurous idea . . . an idea of searching out delicious food, sometimes hunting it if you have to.
For further reference . . . .
Didn't know there were so many mushrooms! Good to read about and see the photos! Alaska's mushrooms are huge!
No! I didn't know that. For being the first-ever person to comment on a post, you win a mixed bag of mostly non-poisonous wild and deliciously cultivated mushrooms!