Today I found an Amanita muscaria var. guessowii in my front yard. Of course, I had no idea that's what it was when I plucked it from the earth. I've been riding a mushroom obsession since I visited my best friend from sixth grade (forty years ago, in other words) recently after finding her on Facebook, and her German mother sauteed up some fresh mushrooms from her yard with onions in olive oil and served it to me on a toasted English muffin.
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
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| Amanita muscaria, var. guessowii from my yard, 9/24/11 Feel free to use, but I would appreciate an attribution. (Copyright Mary Dell Spalding) |
