Found a fat bag of 'shrooms in the park and ate them!
I went over to the playground across the street from my house when a wonderous thing appeared before my eyes, could it be, is it that time already?
It is! Looks to me like it is chicken of the woods season!
These look like four beautiful chickens to me but I am not a mycologist or an expert forager or anything of the sort, don't go eating mushrooms you find and then blame me if you die, there are many amazing guides and actual mushroom experts online who will help you to properly identify mushrooms and groups that go out and pick mushrooms with experts to identify them. That said I like to live on the wild side so I grabbed these even though they looked immature, I came across this one nearby that some child had already destroyed:
That destroyed one is a lot more typical of this variety in that it was growing on an oak tree, these mushrooms feed off of hardwood trees like oak, avoid any growing on any evergreen trees. Here is where it was growing:
These are the first I have found growing on the ground but they were nearby an oak tree where I have found a chicken growing in the past.
A couple were sort of weird and grey one side, not sure if it was dirt or mold or from the sun getting on them or part of the mushroom or what.
This one is gorgeous, no dirt or damaged parts. I grabbed them all and filled a pretty fat sack.
If you could buy these in a store or market, they would cost $20- $30 per pound, this is a couple of pounds.
I tried to cut off as much of the dirt around the base as I could, this is not a problem when they are growing on a tree, then you just cut them off as close to the tree as you can. One thing to look out for with these is bugs, bugs love them and if they get there before you do they will ruin it, that's another reason I picked these as soon as I saw them. After I got the dirt off I put them in the fridge in a paper bag, they will keep in there for a while if the humidity is right.
I grabbed the pretty one for my lunch, I sliced it into roughly 3/8th inch slices and it was in the pan with butter probably less than 10 minutes after picking.
It's a lot like cooking actual chicken, these should never be eaten raw, it will brown up and sometimes turn a little red. I took a small bite first to make sure I actually had the right mushroom, that's the final test, if a mushroom actually tastes as it is supposed to taste then it is probably the right one. These have a pretty amazing flavor, its like a lemony chicken/lobster flavor, seems like the older ones I have eaten are a little tougher and have a stronger more lemony flavor, these were more tender and have a more delicate but still lemony chicken/lobster flavor.
It's delicious by itself without anything and I ate some like that but I decided to kick it up a notch.
I toasted and buttered up a nice honey wheat English muffin and fried up an egg, topped it with a big pile of the chicken of the woods and then a little ketchup and my epic homemade hot sauce. It was unbelievably good and its been a couple of hours at this point and my throat hasn't closed up and I haven't been struck with uncontrollable vomiting or diarrhea . I guess I picked the right mushroom.
Do you ever do any foraging? Would you risk your life for a snack?
This is a @steemit exclusive! These low resolution cell phone photos and dull commentary are @funbobby51 original content, all rights reserved, please upvote generously and RESTEEM, I risked my life for this post!
I’ve always been interested but wary of foraging. My one experience with trying it was finding morels growing in a next door neighbors yard by chance and cooking them up.
That's pretty bold! Morels are a little more dangerous than the chicken of the woods because there are some lookalikes.
Luckily I had a friend to blindly follow;) We both though it was risky, but ate them anyway. We researched them a little, but there was no way of knowing if we really had the true thing or not. We based our hunch on having worked in kitchens and having cooked actual morels. I’m sure our guess could have just as easily gone wrong.
I see you like to live on the edge as well! these little thrills are what makes life interesting, no risk, no reward.
I’m not much of a risk taker by myself, but I do like to have fun and take chances. So if I mix with certain people, things tend to happen. These days, though, not a whole of mixing or happening is going on;)
I did it this very weekend - I was out on the prairie in Colorado and I just started eating stuff - first it was wild amaranth and then that was so delicious I just tried every other plant I saw - I am still alive to tell about it. What was amazing was that they were so tasty - such incredibly strong and interesting flavors - who knew??? wow!
we have poison ivy around here ;)
Yes I would have recognized that from my time in upstate New York
I would love to forage for mushrooms. We have a woods behind our house and morels are almost the state "flower" here in Michigan. I find a few now and then and saute them in butter. Most 'srooms here are inedible. They are not poisonous. The difference is that eating an inedible mushroom you will just wish you were dead.
sounds like you are doing a pretty great job of foraging already! I want to catch a morel but I don't know how common they are and I have yet to spot one or even one close enough, what month are they most common in?
April and May after a warm rain in Michigan (Lower peninsula)
This is excellent! I've never seen anything like it. And no way would I be brave enough to eat one without consulting an expert first. Good man. Bet it tasted amazing.
I read a lot about it before I ate my first one a few years ago and it is one of the 4 mushrooms that are supposed to be easy to identify and on the safer side, it does not have a lot of deadly lookalikes, it is a polypore though these have not yet developed their pores. There really is nothing like it, if someone couldn't eat meat it would be a much better replacement for meat than any of the meat substitutes I have tried thus far.
Good to know. I need something like this for my kids who both love meat!
I considered giving some to my son but decided not to risk it, I would never hear the end of that one if he had a reaction!