Chanterelle Mushrooms

[fugawee]

I was working just outside the city this morning (Chicago)
so I had a chance to do my jogging out in
a forest preserve.

While running,I saw a very bright,yellow mushroom
which I remember seeing when I was a kid.
Chanterelle Mushrooms were growing all over the place!
Most were small. I saw an older European couple
wandering off the path and into the bush,hunters for sure.
I spoke with them briefly and asked about the mushrooms.
In her limited English she said they were Chantrelles and also
pointed out that I should watch out for "worms"?
She then used her shroom knife and cut a small one and showed me the
stem. She said the stem should be solid and have no holes in it.
If there were holes,that meant it had worms and not to use those.

A few questions for you professional hunters....
Cant you eat these tiny worms that are in there?
I will probably dry the mushrooms and certainly they show be "OK"

Knife- Isnt that a nono? I thought you needed to
pull them out and kinda twist them.
I was told that cutting the stem could potentially allow
the remains stem to get infected and kill future shroom sprouts.

The couple told me they were just getting the large ones,
I thought the medium to small ones were better?
Anyhow,I am going back tomorrow to pick some
and i will bring a camera.
I saw all kinds of mushrooms,including 1 patch that had
these bright,almost neon red/pink mushrooms.
Weirdest thing I ever saw,like they were glowing!
Hopefully they will still be there and I'll get some pics!

 

[Chris Pierce]

I can't help you with any of your questions, But i can say that I'm definitely interested in pics.

 

[pitdog]

· Should I cut mushrooms off at the basis when collecting them?
You shouldn't do that. The basis of the stipe, which remains in the soil when cutting it off, often contains important characteristics. If it is missing, the danger of a mistake is increased. In addition you would give the fungus a large open wound, by which pollutants can penetrate to the underground living fungus plant. The best way is to twist large mushrooms as a whole one out of the soil, more tender kinds can be lifted with the finger or a knife. It is very important that you close the hole in the ground where the mushroom stood, in order to avoid that the underground living fungus drains.

 

[fugawee]

Thanks Pitdog

Ok,went back there today
the skeeters were terrible.
Ground was really wet/muddy because we had quite a bit of rain lately.

I searched for maybe 2 minutes and saw
a bright yellow patch just ahead of me!

more just over to the left

most were really small,largest of them being the size of a silver dollar.
(inch and a half or so across)
I did stumble onto a few really large ones,but they were
half rotten and mushy
(strider sng for scale)

These large ones were nowhere near the bright yellow like the small ones.
I wasnt 100% sure they were Chanterelles.

I did gather maybe a dozen or so medium size ones
to have for breakfast tomorrow but
I did something pretty stupid.
Under the tree cover,there were many many different types
or mushrooms growing. The yellow Patches were chanterelles.
Just outside of one of these patches were a few larger chanterelles.
I tossed then in my TAD gear dump pouch.
When I got back to the car I dumped my cache out on the green
grass in the sunshine to inspect my gatherings.

but these 3 larger ones were not chanterelles (well,I wasnt sure)

Since I had these unknown shrooms in the same pouch as my chanterelles,
I decided to dump them all in case the spores of those 3 suspect
ones were poisonous and contaminated my good mushrooms.
I did take the chanterelles back to the area I found them and kinda sprinkle
them around hoping next year they might produce...

I will go back there in a week or so and see if any of the ones I saw
have gotten big enough to pick.
There were just hundreds of the smaller ones,hundreds...
It was a good learning experience.
I will bring some type of basket next time,
the TAD Gear Dump pouch

is a great pouch,but not really great for hauling delicate
mushrooms all over.

I had a Maxpedition 10x4 Bottle pouch with me,had the dump
pouch attached to it. Worked great
need to add some type of hook so I can hang my camera
while using both my hands to pick the mushrooms.

Anyway,had a good time... :thumbup:

(I got quite a few pics of other mushrooms/fungi.will post later)