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10-27-2008, 08:29 AM | #1 |
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Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
I am Elvis Boletus,
Quantum Mountaineer. I am not a mushroom expert, but I am getting better all the time. I run cross country mountain trails in search of edible shrooms. often I come back with bags of Boletes, shaggy lepiotas, or brown Matsutake, etc. I grow ****ake here in a variety of logs, predominantly alder, and have developed a major production trick... trade secret. Ha! But, slowly over the next weeks hopefully, I will post edible and medicinal mushrooms, with some descriptions. To be included for this thread, is an invitation for anyone to post ANY Forest Food or forest or plant medicinal / edible source material /nutrient. so that I can learn from you! Maqui berries have more antioxidants than acai berries!.. or blueberries... or maybe even dark choco -cacao The Birch tree is revered for medicinal qualities. Birch bark is used in teas, and two highly medicinal fungi grow on Birches: Birch Polypore and Chaga. Chaga cured Solzhenitsyn of his cancer by his own admission. Native shamanic practice in Kamchatka will only use an Amanita from under a Birch tree. Also growing from Birch roots is the Birch Bolete, which is a culinary masterpiece if harvested in dryer conditions after the rains. I pick a lot of these when I can. here is a beauty found in west seattle This is a Butter Bolete, notice the fine webbing on the upper stalk with the arrow, one of the hallmarks of a Butter Bolete. I used butter, olive oil and pinchy winchy of white wine cooked slow until a bit browned. Tasted like rosated nuts. this is a Pacific Northwest hericium. The famous hericium is called Lion's Mane, this one below is a cousin, and is called Goat's Beard.---> Hericium Erinacious, used a medicinal in Asia for digestive disorders etc, good in eggs and taters for breakfast better images coming of hericium erinaceous |
10-27-2008, 08:44 AM | #2 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
so how long are you gone for?
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10-27-2008, 11:51 AM | #3 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
be very careful where you pick your mushrooms. there are legal claims on certain areas during the season, i have spoken with people who have been both sued and shot at for trespassing on the claims of others.
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10-27-2008, 01:47 PM | #4 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Only in the America's you get shot at for trespassing! Long live the freedom for guns (and killing )
But nice mushrooms man! |
10-27-2008, 02:06 PM | #5 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Uniconr....Is Canadian ....... Deathstar.
Jenny.
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10-27-2008, 02:31 PM | #6 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Quote:
This is a great idea if you can get the training but please don't think just anyone can go out and do this without some serious knowledge. At the least if you pick the wrong stuff you'll end up with a bad case of belly ache and the wild ****es...at the worst you'll end up dead. |
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10-28-2008, 06:27 AM | #7 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Quote:
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10-28-2008, 08:52 AM | #8 |
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10-28-2008, 08:55 AM | #9 |
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10-28-2008, 09:01 AM | #10 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Check this out
http://www.mushroomharvest.com/ |
10-28-2008, 09:17 AM | #11 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_mushroom I presume the "brawl poison mushroom" that you're showing there is given that name because vikings used to take it before going bezerk lol Don't get me wrong, it's a great free source of food for people who know what they're doing. |
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10-28-2008, 10:14 AM | #12 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Well
I just posted a lengthy reply and lost it all.... OK LOTS of shrooms are very easy to identify. the king Bolete or Porcini is tooooooooooo easy to know ... look for the netted stalk, I will post a king Bolete section later. The Shaggy Lepiota has one lookalike that is a piece of cake to distinguish here in the PNW and one can go to local parks or lowland cedar and fir forests where there is LOTS of ground covergae of cedra droppings and fir needles and pick bags full of poundage ... because NOBODY os picking them; and they are FANTASTIC. when the second flush of shaggy's bust out this November hopefully I will post some images of the Lepiota bulbs. You take a big fat Lepiota Bulb, pop the stem out, fill with a pre fried mix of garlic onion and ground ...meat... or Amy's veggie burger... whatever filler you wanna make... fill the bulb anf bake. Or just cut em up and fry with butter and olive oil and taters and eggs. I go up in the mountains for single day forays to specific areas that are as pristine as possible, specifically for king boletes.. Up near washington pass at 6000 feet I found enormous Boletus Montanus but my ex GF lost my images. When cut or cooked this Bolete turns deep Purple. From this Bolete, also called Bondwarzewei Bolete, is an anti cancer compound that has been recombinated for patenting purposes .I also found what are referred to as Giant Sawtooth Boletes at the same location. One fellow nentioned Red Amanitas with white spots. Amanita Muscaria. is NOT TOXIC as in containing deadly Amantins that are found in amanita phalloides, which is often mistaken for an Agaricus Meadow Mushsroom button. Amanita Muscaria however will make you throw up more times than not, then you get high. NOT recommended. Up in the mountains sometimes I scrape the white spots off.....ugh...slimo disgusto... and under the top skin of the yellow or red caps, is a layer of yellow shroom meat. This is where the highest concentrations of active muscimol is located for the adventurer. I merely chew and hold a swath under the tongue for awhile, and catch a buzz. i have no desire to throw up by fully ingesting. Amanita Muscaria "grades" to a brilliant yellow as well, and these are more potent. i will post pics eventually. If you take the red and yellow ones, scrape off the white spots carefully, and very slow dry under low heat, you will get Caps that are incerdibel beautiful. the yellow Amanitas turn an incredible irridescent Gold. The most potent Amanita is the Pantherina. Not recommended. A group of "veterans" in olympia Wshingtion ran into a rather potent bartch and passed out then forgot to breathe and ended up in the hospital. The problem with these shrooms is that one amanita will be three times stronger than another. Look to the thicjness of the yellow meaty section just under the skin. once again ...not recommended... fooey.. but...heh another EASY to harvest EDIBLE mushroom is the White Oyster or Pleurotus Pulmonarius It grows in JUNE ... an off season shroom here, and you can pick BAGS full... Nobody picks em.... But I do here is why A cluster on a tree in local park size comparison of above cluster harvested for eating LOL this one is a Bitter Bolete.... not a Butter Bolete.... HARD AS A ROCK but not too tasty...... Mt Baker I will get some pics tomorrow of the ****akes growing here now in the cold very slowly. They are in second season of production !!! here is one of last years big ****akes... I found it under a log that was discarded as a failure...LOL and it truned out to be the besyt log, but it took 2 years to pop the ****akes as it is a 13 inch wide log. It weighed 6.5 ounces fresh... it was FAT ****akes have Lentinan ... a great antui cancer compound amanitas fresh in the high mountains taste like nuts., |
10-28-2008, 11:34 AM | #13 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
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Seriously...I never KNEW that. Thing is I never like mushrooms. But, I would eat them if I was hungry enough. My Father (that lived through the Depression) told me I would eat just about anything if I was hungry enough. Of course I was a teenager (err..Mean-Ager) and knew everything back then. I would not accept his words then but, I fully understand them and accept them now... Funny how Fathers (And Mothers) become so much smarter while we get older.... |
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10-28-2008, 03:51 PM | #14 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Wild Mushrooms scare me...so if i can never eat mushrooms again so be it
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10-28-2008, 08:00 PM | #15 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
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I'm surprised no-ones mentioned truffles actually, if you can get them they're a great way to make a fair bit of money nevermind the food value |
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10-29-2008, 06:10 AM | #16 | |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Andy H sez
Quote:
well, don't count on that because Galerina's grow on wood chips. Galerina's contain deadly amantins like Amanita Phalloides. The best option for mushroom ID is a SPORE PRINT. Take off stem. Take shroom cap and place on a piece of paper gills down. Wait a couple to several hours. Sidenote: some shrooms like Boletes and Polypore Conks have PORES instead of gills, and some shrooms have spines, instead of gills or pores. The mushroom spore print leaves a coating of spores on a piece of colored paper or white paper, and the spore print will have a definitive COLOR. The Deadly Galerina will leave a distinctly orangish rusty brown spore print. There is really only one reason a Galerina MIGHT be eaten. Psychedelic shroom pickers go after strains of psilocybe called Cyanescens and Azurescens due to the extreme potencies. Sidenote: Coastal PNW Cyanescens are a slightly different strain than their European counterparts, and far stronger. OK the problem with The Cyans and the Azures is that as babies they are remarkably similar to the Deadly Galerina. I have seen a Cyanescen on one end of a large wood chip, and a Galerina on the other end. I have seen small Azures look identical to small or medium size Galerinas. Solution: Spore Print EVERY DAM_N Shroom NO MATTER WHAT if you are attempting to pick these psilocybe strains The Cyans and Azures will have a blackish purple spore print, the Galerinas will have the orange rusty brown print. Problem for young pickers is that sometimes the searcher for psychedelic Cyanescens will find the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow: i.e. a few thousand in one huge flush. what to do? YOU SPORE PRINT EACH AND EVERY ONE. I personally have seen this phenomena... thousands and thousands of Cyans, absolutely everywhere, from small and tiny to huge wavy cap quarter ouncers. Nobody can eat them all, I referred the patch onto some college guys who probably made a bundle of money. deadly Galerina on a log but I don't like Galerina's or Cyanescens........ Psilocybe Cyanescens has unusual side effects, and that will be discussed later. Back to EDIBLE CULINARY MASTERPIECES ha! The Bolete is hard to beat. Another famous Bolete is the Admirable Bolete, especially if found growing to maturity in a bit drier weather after the rains so that they are not all soggy. When cooked they have a background lemon taste that is spectacular, and these are one of my favorites for the frying pan. I never seem to find too many, like you would find clusters of King Boletes but this one here was found up near Dock Butte south of Mt Baker and was quite the prize as it was a beefy one. Pores underneath Last edited by Vianova; 10-30-2008 at 07:39 AM. |
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10-30-2008, 07:32 AM | #17 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
****akes are prized culinary masterpieces of Nature.
****akes contain Lentinan, a powerful anti-cancer compound. I grow ****ake here in logs. Primarily Alder, but I have several experimental logs of a variety of woods both ongoing and attempted. I use Stamets ****ake strain as the plug spawn that he sells from Fungiperfecti.com in Olympia Washington. His ****ake strain is spectacular, but I have had no luck with his Maitake. I did get Reishi to pop in Apple wood. Stamets operation is probably the most proficiently professional mycological team of mycelia production on the planet. I don't care for his US Bioshield affiliations. Anybody can grow ****akes with practice and patience. I have developed an innovation to lead to higher and more repeated flushes over 2-3 years on as small as 5 inch wide logs. Also found a wood better than Alder or Oak for production. If you cover your plugs in your logs with wax, your yield will double to triple. Be sure to get logs from as pristine or clean of a source as possible and clean them well prior to plugging and waxing. You will see my wax stains on the logs often over an old plug or on the sawn or exposed surfaces. Early Spring these ****akes bloomed from 13 inch wide logs. I had to put them in this giant tub that has a water release valve, to keep them from the potato bugs and slugs. Did you know that a potato bug is a ..crustacean...? This was a great harvest, it produced for 1 and one half months, but it took the log 1.5 years to produce this second flush. So this fall I got a late start and we also have had cold dry weather stunting the growth. Last night the warm wet front moved in, and over night the buds grew 40%. here they are in the shopping cart, you will see the same 3 logs up right that were in the tub, Shroom Flush number three, the second one in 7 months! each flush produces a percentage less, and these are BABIES. closeups of undersides of the babies, and notice the color differential between the ****akes from two types of logs . Yummy man! Rare example of Pinicolas that have fallen to Earth with the tree, then re-adapted to grow and shade the underside, very unusual example. a cute bundle of yellow coral shrooms budding from the soil at Ross Lake |
10-30-2008, 07:41 AM | #18 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
I just wrote this for a seperate thread, but then found this one! I'll keep it in here! YEAH FOR MUSHROOMS, the magical, the yummy, and the deadly. They're all beautiful!
--------------------------- AMANITA MUSCARIA A common and legal (yes, 100% legal) hallucinogenic mushroom that grows in most temperate regions of the world. It's usually found at the base of conifers, as it lives off the live roots of the tree, sometimes birch and oak too. It's usually the very common red stool with white warts on top, or the Mario mushroom, you see growing in yards. It has a larger season out on the Pacific coast from spring to fall, but east of the Rockies, it tends to be orange and yellow and appear in the late summer until the first frost. The variant found in Maine is called formosa (Amanita Muscaria var. Formosa) and tends to be a pale yellow to much brighter yellow cap, with white stalk. On the stalk you can see this little white skirt hanging from it. You also want to dig it up from the bulb. Whole thing is edible and usable. Unlike psilocybin mushrooms, the experience is considered much more spiritual by many as it is excellent for meditation and lucid dreaming, as it tends to make people feel tired. One must prepare it correctly, as eaten raw it can make one very sick stomach wise. Controlled heat (roughly 190 degrees F at 30 minutes tends to work great) causes a chemical conversion process in the mushroom and makes it safe to eat plus much more hallucinogenic. Doses range from 8 to over 20 grams, with varying effects, but people usually take lose doses around 1-2 grams, sometimes everyday as it's considered great for seasonal depression. If one doesn't dry it, it is absolutely excellent cooked. I tend to sautee the mushrooms rather lightly (very little heat) in olive oil for ten minutes with some onions then throw them into a tomato sauce and let that sit for about a half hour cooking at a very light simmer (water boils at 212 degrees F remember, 190 is your target). One can also boil a few times over, specifcally five minutes each time up to three times, while replacing the water each time to complete detoxify the mushroom to simply enjoy it's wonderful and unique flavor. Researchers have hypothesized that the Amanita Muscaria mushroom is the ancient Soma described in the Vedas. Siberian shamans have known to widely use this mushroom in religious practices and ceremonies. The 'lesser' people would drink the **** of the shamans as the body doesn't process most of the chemical, and sometimes the imbiber is even more intoxicated than the shaman. Anyways, I found over 200 grams (when it's dried) today in my friend's front yard. They've been sitting in the sun for a couple days so they are just past the point where they are perfect to eat cooked, still possible, but I am going to dry them and grind them up into a powder. You then can make a tea with them which is considered by some to be the best and most efficient way (but you lose the flavor as the sacrifice). Enjoy the pics! PLEASE NOTE: This for the most part is purely informational. Picking wild mushrooms is extremely dangerous if one doesn't no what they are doing. A field guide is highly recommended (lots of good info online though). I have spent over three years hunting edible and hallucinogenic mushroom with great success. I've clocked in just around 200 hundred hours hunting but also probably around thirty hours of reading on the subject. There is a very large amount of information out there, and I highly recommend you do a fair share of research before even considering to ingest a wild mushroom. Shroomery.org is a great source for info, discussion, and professional identification. Tomorrow, I'll post some pictures of other mushrooms I find hunting, mainly the edible ones I get such as Chicken of the Woods (Tastes just like chicken! So good!). ------------------------- Amanita flacovinia. (This was one of my center piece pictures for an art exhibit I did on Maine fungi this fall) A somewhat close look alike but definitely can tell the difference upon close inspection. This has no skirt above the bulb, but does have the partial veil half way on the stalk. Always seems to very bright and solid yellow, but are much more of a summer bloomer in the Northeast, and die off in the early fall. It also rarely has any warts, and if it does they are only a few in the dead center. The guidebooks say it is poisonous along with muscaria, but I am almost positive that it's not, and that it's actually a tasty edible (from inner mushroom circles). I do not recommend eating it by no means. Amanitas (the genus) have the most poisonous mushrooms in the world, but luckily Muscaria is very easy to identify among the group, actually one of the easiest mushrooms overall in all mycology. |
10-30-2008, 09:05 AM | #19 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Excellent,
thanks for the addition! i will add a cool little image to compliment your amanita muscarias at Mt Baker two days ago popping out of the parking lot rubble at Park Butte, a baby Amanita Muscaria...looks like it is going to be a yellow one. About a 1 inch cap. Up at Newhalem there was a field of amanita's, another baby |
10-30-2008, 10:21 AM | #20 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
You gotta love some of the useful info on this forum
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11-02-2008, 07:02 PM | #21 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
It has been a busy weekend,
and I got back to see the progress on the ****ake Logs. .........3 days ago........ One hour ago Closer in from above, sure looks like it's time to cut some more, for a Risotto One cannot eat ****ake every day. it is a delicacy and medicinal to the point of common sense intake. Some people do not do well with ****akes digestively. One must guage for them selves, but unlike King Boletes which I can eat every day, I do limit ****akes to every two or three days. i think it is a good idea to dry them somewhat after harvest, and if you sun dry ****ake with the gills up in the sunshine for a few hours, they will absorb tons of Vitamin D ---- see studies by Stamets, but the again one must be careful of excess vitamin D intake, so I usually limit the gills up in the sun to 2 hours. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Citation Inhibition of human colon carcinoma development by lentinan from shiitake mushrooms (Lentinus edodes). |
11-02-2008, 08:31 PM | #22 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
AWESOME info, THX so much!
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11-02-2008, 09:55 PM | #23 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
Do all those mushrooms look like they belong in your body?
They are a fungus. |
11-02-2008, 10:52 PM | #24 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
It’s so ironic that I just came in from a day of planting ginseng out in the woods on my farm and found this thread.
Wow . . . . . absolutely beautiful pictures of super specimens, you definitely seem to have found your calling in life. I too have been a long time gatherer of mushrooms and other forest flora for medicine and heavenly food. I had a very good teacher in my great Grandmother who would take me along on her medicinal herb gathering forays. Actually I think I was mostly the “pack mule”. I wish so much now that I would have paid more attention to her wisdom. One rule she drilled over and over in my head was to never take every mushroom or plant in the area . . . . we always left two or three and thanked the “Spirit” for allowing us the bounty we did harvest. Also very important when gathering mushrooms is to carry them in a net type bag so that the spore from the harvested mushrooms is dropped on to the forest floor as you hike along and therefore “reseeding” as you go. I look forward to reading more in this particular thread. Really good stuff. |
11-02-2008, 11:24 PM | #25 |
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Re: Edible & Medicinal Mushrooms, Forest Foods
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