I'm still pretty damn noob at IDing so many, but there is about 3-4 mushrooms, Oysters, Morels, Chanterelle (the chicken of the woods) that are VERY easy to ID that are fuckin delicious. It's fun to go hunting with someone more experienced than me. Also I've found some Psilocybe cyanescens in random places before like Golden Gate Park! They are fairly common around the SF bay area and more northern regions. Their name even is a play on san (cyan) Franciscan (escen ) which is cute
anyone else here forage or spot mushrooms? i've been thinking about growing some. they have neat little boxes you just water and they grow or i suppose you can just buy bagged spores too. I've only come across Oysters once but they are fuckin bomb.
I've never been brave enough to actually pick any, but I definitely ID every mushroom I come across, which is fun.
I was gifted an oyster and lions mane grow kit a while ago, and they're very cool to have, but a bit of work to take care of. I got 1 decent harvest from each, before they both dried up because I was apperantly underwatering them. I buried them in some nearby woods, so hopefully the power of nature can revive the colonies and treat any other spotters nearby.
that's a great idea burying them like that, you might get super lucky one day and find a whole faire ring lol. Luckily (or unlucky) wildfire here seems to bring out a few cool ones at the start of the next rain season, i live for the rain now! lol
Top tier fungus. Hard to beat slowly roasted with some butter, can eat them like candy. they are fairly hard to find sometimes but it's genuinely like Christmas morning as a kid finding some
I'm going up into the Rockies this weekend for the first potential crop of them. Worse places to spend a day foraging.
Can tell chanterelle, hedgehog fungus, funnel chanterelle and penny bun by heart. Was taught by my mum when I was little, she loves going mushroom hunting, still get a couple of bags of chanterelles from her per year.
The best mushroom hunter I knew was a local semi-homeless man (he did bit jobs and lived in accomodation in winter but basically lived on his little boat in summer) who I used to know fairly well from being down at the lake a lot. He would always have a load of chanterelles that he would share and we'd throw some stuff on the fire, liked that guy. Also the only person I know that managed to catch trout in that lake.
The best mushroom hunter I knew was a local semi-homeless man
dang, for me the very first guy i ever met who did it was also unhoused!! that's how i learned about wavy caps (Psilocybe cyanescens) was me and some friends hanging out in Golden Gate Park and the dude was picking them and we asked him about it and he filled us all in on the details. It was mind blowing we were chillin sitting next to psychedelic mushrooms all while trying to buy some fuckin weed (which he also hooked up!) that dude rocked so fuckin hard, he hooked us up with a few of them as well after we bought weed. But i've gone back after the first rain of the season and there was a TON of people all looking for them lol. I eventually found some on my own away from the city and that was fun.
I've been growing some. success with pink oysters and some psilocybin(in RuneScape). Failure on Lions mane and shitake so far. Sadly not many grow to forage around me.
shitakes are fuckin dope, that's probably what i'd buy if i were to buy anything personally. Can use them in so many dishes I normally eat. The forage season here is pretty narrow window in terms of actually finding an abundant amount. I don't like picking random stragglers too much since they can be overharvested already. But when you find a huge bath, especially Chanterelles, i go hog wild on it lol
Man I love the look of Chanterelles. Never seen em in the wild... Kinda wanna try growing them. I do hope I get some better luck with shitakes. Got a whole colonized pan but no fruiting. Sad. :sad-boi:
local rednecks where i am are often the most hardcore of mushroom hunters. one coworker i had wouldn't shut up about it and he was pretty smart but unfortunately an unredemiable ultra-chud.
YES! The redwoods after a big rain is some jackpot shit. that's shitty about that coworker though, i don't think i could hang out with someone in the woods for a few hours like that before the mood turns sour from the sounds of what they're like.
I've only ever foraged for morels, but I'm exploring some of the others that are easy to ID. Need to pick up a field guide for my region. I think I've positively IDd some spots where Hen-of-the-woods/maitake grows and I've heard they're pretty easy to forage safely, and low risk for confusion, so I may start picking some of those this year.
A guy I work with cultivates a ton and has been chatting with me about it, and it has me interested. I might look into some outdoor inoculated log growing.
Highly recommend getting a field guide, good call. I got one for northern California and it's a slightly larger than what you'd call pocket sized one with pretty detailed pictures and descriptions and it's honestly invaluable to cross reference online stuff or even when service just isn't working/spotty. They are stupidly easy to grow though, honestly, you could throw them in a damn shoebox and throw it under your bed and hardly touch it and many of them will grow. But of course finding or buying nutrient rich soil will make a difference in terms of flavor and growth.
I might look into some outdoor inoculated log growing.
I went with this website for my shiitake logs and it couldn't be easier. Soak the logs, drill holes where you want them to fruit, put the dowels in the holes, and cover them with beeswax. Then you just have to water them with a hose every week until they fruit about a year later. I'd have a couple dozen species going if there were hardwood forests nearby. Those you just stack passively in a somewhat shady area. My maitake log is buried in my garden and grows up through the soil.
I live in a place where morels are really common, or so my neighbors say, in six years of looking I haven't found a single one. :deeper-sadness: I have found some Chanterelle before but haven't tried eating them yet.
you lucky son of—ohh. damn that's a huge bummer. Pretty much can't go wrong with frying them in butter though, most mushrooms do really well slow and low roasted in an oil or butter with salt and sugar or whatever else you like. But you can just lightly fry them and throw it in pasta or something too and it's great.
I'm growing mushrooms right now - cubensis - and my very first baby shrooms popped up just this morning :) I originally started this project so I could microdose for my mental health, but it's been so much fun that I'm really getting into mycology now!
i've heard almost all positive things about microdosing psilocybin, good luck with that, sounds rad! that's cool you found a love for it too. Have you ever watched Fantastic Fungi by chance? that documentary blew my damn mind, sooo good, can't recommend it enough
Yeah I'm very excited about trying microdosing - I'm doing trauma therapy twice a week and I think the added neuroplasticity will help a lot in dislodging old thinking patterns. Funny that you mention that documentary because I just had a friend recommend it to me last night. Guess that's a sign I should watch it ASAP!
Hey I wish you the best of luck with that, sounds like you got really positive thoughts already though which is a great sign :solidarity:
Mushroom Hunting is also my favorite song from Cowboy Bebop
haha not huge anime watcher but for you, ill check out this song!
is it this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77HJZTPghQs this fuckin slaps actually goddamn
that is high up on my eventually i'll watch this anime list. i know a few ppl online who have some kinda username based off it and they're cool so it must be good
Some of my friends like to go mushroom hunting every now and then but I dont like the woods and something about the texture of mushrooms really makes me feel sick so I never really join them. So far, we've had a few giant puffball mushrooms that went bad on the counter before they could eat them. It does seem fun though.
A group I was with found some chantarelles which are pretty tasty, as well as milk pepper caps and another rare and sweet kind that I forget.
never ate Milk Pepper caps (Lactifluus piperatus?) but i'm pretty sure I've seen them, some of the white ones spook me out not gonna lie lol. but i'd definitely try it if i was with someone i trust on that one. I'm insanely cautious about eating stuff I can't absolutely 100% certify myself unless someone else does. But with time I'll grow my confident. I found out a few years ago that I can bring in fungi to the mycology department at a couple colleges near by (SFSU) and they'll ID them for free!! I've yet to use this but I know some people who have. They'll even ID hallucinogenic ones which is rad. But I've had good experience on r/mycology with help on IDing stuff in the past as well but I've never ate any of them just an ID.
Tbh milk pepper caps are not terribly tasty. They're more just interesting because they're spicy in a very unique way. I want to try drying some and grinding them up as a powder to add to dishes and see where that gets me. If you fry them it takes out the spice mostly, but the leftover flavour is really not the most appetizing thing in the world.
huh, interesting one right there. kinda wanna see what that's like now
I've been wanting to grow some golden oyster mushrooms, they look so cool and are supposedly real good for you.
Oysters are one of the easiest species to grow and your cost per pound comes down to like 70 cents. /r/mushroomgrowers is a great resource. I get my spores from r/mycobazaar, usually going for black pearls (P. ostreatus x P. eryngii) or pearl oysters (P. ostreatus). The former are about as firm as a parsnip so you can grill them. The latter are thinner, but pan-fried are a great pork replacement.
fungus is a such a complex organism, it's one of the few things I think is actually a "super food" of sorts. It just has to be, and I'll keep telling myself that as I eat them incredibly often
