haha – yes, that’s right “by” dummies, not “for” dummies, as we really don’ t know what the heck we’re doing.
My husband and i LOVE foraging for mushrooms. We have two species we know how to ID (and know how to ID their look alikes) so that we feel confident eating them: chanterelles and king boletes (porcinis). Neither of which grow on our property, doh! We do have some pretty neat shrooms out here though, so we went gathering last weekend and brought them home to research and attempt to id, NOT eat. Here’s what we found:
These big fellows just popped up in the ‘trash area’ left to us between the barn and shop. They’re growing under a Maple tree. I believe Andy had an idea of the genus but i can’t remember.
Boletes are my favorite mushroom to cook – King Boletes in particular. We have a LOT of the red stemmed “bitter boletes” which i think you can tell from their name that they’re no good for eating. We’re not positive, but we THINK these are “fat jack” Suillus caerulescens. Supposedly edible but not delicious. I just hate not knowing/utilizing a potential food source!
We’re almost positive these are “shrimp mushrooms” a type of russula. The older specimen smelled strongly of fish/shrimp! I’ll admit, we did cook up a tiny bit and taste it, and it was gooood.
I haven’t a clue with these, but they are just gorgeous! We’ve got whole herds of these peachy colored mushrooms out in the woods. So lovey! They look a bit like “lactarius rubrilacteus” and do, in fact, bruise greenish.
These mushrooms are so.neat. Tall and skinny with a magical fringe. The gills are powdery looking. We IDd this one too, and again – i can’t remember. If my husband would answer his stinkin phone while i write this post it would be REALLY HELPFUL. There are several stands of these very magical looking mushrooms. They are clearly not edible, but totally gorgeous.
And lastly are these little colony guys. Growing in dense clusters they reminded me of ‘chicken of the woods’ but i’m sure that’s not what they are.
Are you a mycologist or knowledgable in the word of mushrooms? Lend your comments to our ID attempts! What kind of mushrooms are these, and what do you think of their edibility? Yes, no, flavorful, gross?
