Edible Wild Mushrooms

55Mercury

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May 31, 2007
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Edible Mushrooms on Vancouver Island - Blifaloo.com Boredom Relief

I've eaten Chanterels and a couple others. The problem is that for every edible wild mushroom out there, there is a dozen poisonous cousins that look almost the same.
Love 'em!

been foraging for wild choice edibles since the late 70s. mm-mm.

morels, chanterelles, puff balls, horse mushrooms, blewits, oyster mushrooms (tag into a cluster of these fishy tasting shrooms and you'll throw away your fishing rod!), chicken of the woods (really does taste like chicken!), smooth lepiota (careful! these tasty fare have a deadly look-alike: The Destroying Angel), shaggy parasols, shaggy mane, honey mushrooms, spring agaric, wine agaric, to name a few of the choicest tasting mushrooms. yours to discover!
 

CDNBear

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never heard of them. do they go by another name?
Don't know, that's what I was tought they were called.

They pop up during hunting season, usually after the first snowfall. In acidic soil in or around Pine groves.

I'll see if I can dig up a pic...

Done...



Aborted Entoloma (Hunter's Hearts), Entoloma abortivum
 

55Mercury

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I think I've seen those. Do they have a fairly unpleasant strong odour to them?
 

CDNBear

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I think I've seen those. Do they have a fairly unpleasant strong odour to them?
Not at all.

They also don't have a strong taste. The wife hated mushrooms, until I brought these home. It was the shroom that broke the ice. Now she loves them.

I fry them very quickly, in butter, with a little garlic, and put them on top the wifes peppered venison. Which is the first meal she makes with the first Deer I take each year.
 

CDNBear

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nice! I've always said "serve wild with wild!"
Absolutely! One of the wife's friends gives us a bag of manomin whenever we meet up. Nothing beats wild lake rice and wild mushrooms, accompanying Venison or Moose steaks.

Hmmm, now I have to go take some Deer out of the freezer for dinner tomorrow, lol.
 

talloola

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my daughter's partner almost died 3 months ago, eating what he thought was a pine mushroom, and the
next thing he was on dialysis and it was touch and go for quite a while before he could be disconnected
and told he was going to be OK.
 

SLM

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Mar 5, 2011
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my daughter's partner almost died 3 months ago, eating what he thought was a pine mushroom, and the
next thing he was on dialysis and it was touch and go for quite a while before he could be disconnected
and told he was going to be OK.

Wow, my condolences Talloola.
 

CDNBear

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my daughter's partner almost died 3 months ago, eating what he thought was a pine mushroom, and the
next thing he was on dialysis and it was touch and go for quite a while before he could be disconnected
and told he was going to be OK.
I hope he's OK without any permanent ill effects?
 

#juan

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Aug 30, 2005
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I'm too much of a coward to try anything I wasn't completely sure about. Chanterels, Oyster mushrooms, are fairly easy to identify. Another thing about wild mushrooms is that they are gone so fast. Just before Christmas I ran accross a whole raft of Chanterels. I went back the next day and they were completely gone. Maybe animals like them too.
 

55Mercury

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May 31, 2007
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I'm too much of a coward to try anything I wasn't completely sure about. Chanterels, Oyster mushrooms, are fairly easy to identify. Another thing about wild mushrooms is that they are gone so fast. Just before Christmas I ran accross a whole raft of Chanterels. I went back the next day and they were completely gone. Maybe animals like them too.
bugs love them! So once you know where your mushrooms grow you have to make sure you get to them before those pesky fungus gnats do. So it's ususally best to pick them as buttons, before they've opened up and the bugs (larvae) are barely detectable (microscopic).

As I said, once you're sure of what you're picking.

Fall mushrooms are so much nicer to pick because the cooler temperatures slow down the bugs' metabolisms allowing you a longer picking window.

I do recommend the book listed at the bottom of juan's link. It's the one I bought way back when. For 25 bucks or so, it can save your life. Perhaps it would make a good gift for Taloola's daughter's beau, non?
 

55Mercury

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ha, yeah, I went on one of those one-day field classes through Georgian College one summer. I ended up thinking that I knew more about them then the prof conducting the course. lol but it was fun just the same. Caught my first whiff of ravenelli's stinkhorn and I have to say it is most appropriately named. You can smell em long before you can see 'em.
 

pgs

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he is fine now, doesn't seem to have any permanent effect, although if he
notices anything, he might keep it to himself, and not say anything, unless
it became absolutely necessary.
Pines have a very distinctave odor,it is hard to mistake them for other mushrooms if
you know the smell test.
 

talloola

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Pines have a very distinctave odor,it is hard to mistake them for other mushrooms if
you know the smell test.

I know they were wet at the time, and apparantly the pines have little hairs that stick up, but when
they are wet they lay flat like the 'look a likes', thats all I was told, as I don't have a clue.

He had a group of 'what he thought' were pines, but seems there was one intruder, as he did notice
'the' one mushroom before he cooked them, looked at it, then decided it was OK.

Do the copy cats grow right in the same area where the actual pines grow?

He was in poor condition for about 3 days or so, hospital emmergency actually sent him home, but he
got worse, and went back next day, they sent him to nanaimo hospital, then they
sent him to victoria to be put on dialysis, then back to nanaimo, then when he improved he had
to go everyday for dialysis here in comox valley for about another 2 or 3 weeks or so, till the blood tests
showed he was going to be OK.
We have a good friend who is a naturapath, and he put him on a medication very
quickly to
protect his liver from being harmed, which helped him, so poison only affected
his kidneys.