richbrew99
Well-Known Member
Found this 7+ lb Hen of the Woods mushroom while out mushroom hunting this morning.
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I know a few spots where they grow huge like that as well. I used to go and collect about 25 kg of the hard ones per year, then once when I ate them I got violently ill and honestly thought I was going to die. First thought was maybe I had accidentally mixed in some kind of bad mushroom, but I don't really know how since nothing else really looks like a porcini. Then a few years later, smbo and I bought some frozen porcini from the store and fried them with some veal liver. Again, got violently ill and ended up laying on the shower room floor in a pool of my own vomit that just kept coming and coming.
It was a long time after that before I wanted to eat any mushroom again.
dinnerstick
Well-Known Member
wow that's weird indeed, never heard anything of the sort. and strange that it happened suddenly. as much as i love them, i could easily never eat them again if faced with the possibility of an episode like you describe!
dinnerstick
Well-Known Member
that's a beauty! i love the hen. never find them here though. i find chicken mushroom and sponge mushroom regularly (in the same spot every year) but they are second-best compared to maitake.
as my mind wanders, here is something for chicken mushroom collectors. sometimes the texture, even of the younger bits, is too firm or almost leathery. obviously avoid the really woody bits, but put the rest in a food processor with steel blade, and process to a coarse crumble. then season and fry as you would minced meat, let it brown up a bit, add chili paste / mole if you want and simmer in there for a while, and make tacos. reaaaally tasty.
richbrew99
Well-Known Member
That sounds way delicious, will have to try that. About a month ago I found a chicken and tried it by itself sautéed in a pan. To me it needs to be mixed with something else. The hen was awesome sautéed, will definitely go looking for more this weekend. Been getting some good rain, so should be successful
oops...
dinnerstick
Well-Known Member
shaggy manes. lots. and a few porcini
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
Awesome foraging Dinnerstick! Makes me wish I'd spent more time out in the country areas of The Netherlands when I was there. Tough to forage in Amsterdam or Rotterdam.
Regards, GF.
Regards, GF.
richbrew99
Well-Known Member
I like those peeled, sliced breaded & fried with breaded/fried walleye & fries.
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
I think the kottbusser would go great with them?...
mattmmille
Well-Known Member
Finally got around to using those wild muscadine grapes that have been hanging out in my fridge forever! I also had some Concord hybrid grapes called Grenache that SWMBO bought for something and never used...all went into some jelly that looks like it turned out really well.
mattmmille
Well-Known Member
And the grapes crop in my usual spots looks pretty bleak this year. Sad.
mattmmille
Well-Known Member
Sister in Law spotted a persimmon tree dropping fruit and being ignored on the edge of the property where my Father in Law was recently moved into a nursing home. I went to check it out and actually found three trees...but only got a handful of fruit. Problems with wild persimmons: 1) they are small, 2) they do not all ripen the same time, so it's hard to collect enough to do anything with, except eat them as they are, 3) if they aren't ripe, they will dry out and pucker your mouth like crazy...old timers used to compare it to alum, but nobody knows what that is any more, 4) persimmon trees grow tall and so does the fruit...and if it's ripe enough to fall, it wil split when it hits the ground...so bugs get to them before you do. Persimmons in the wild look like small plums with a little "collar" where the stem attaches. They usually have 3 or 4 seeds in the pulp, about the size of large watermelon seeds. The texture is like a cross between an over ripe plum and cooked pumpkin...pulpy, almost custardy smooth with some fibers. The flavor kind of tastes like a blend of pumpkin and plum also. I think ones that are bright orange and the size of a tennis ball come from Asia...and I don't think I have ever eaten one. But I think they taste similar. Persimmons bring back memories of going back to school and Fall arriving, because there was a tree or two in a small patch of woods right by the bus stop. Today is probably the first time I've had a ripe, wild persimmon since junior high school...almost 40 years ago.
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
Sounds like you need a pole picker Matt.
Kind of depends on where you live. Maple sap is a spring thing, and isn't used much for wine, but if you boil the sht out of it and make syrup, then yes you can make something out of it.
I think you can probably find a good deal on cider at a cider house now, but all the apples around here are gone. I think it's just too late for most things.
Sap won't flow in fall? I thought it just had to freeze at night and not during the day
I've never heard of running sap in the fall. There's probably a reason why, but I don't know what it is.
Sap goes from roots to limbs to feed buds to create new growth. Now is the dormant season in colder climates.
You also want to stop collecting when it starts budding in the spring. The sap will have a bitter taste. There are other trees besides maples you can collect sap from. I've also heard the native americans use to extract sap from grape vines. The vines actually produce a lot of sap.
Thanks for the info
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
You might consider birch sap, though that's more of a winter thing, like maple. Wild roses form rose hips in autumn, they're a good source of vitamin C & are a good tea ingredient. Apples/crab apples are a good autumn fruit & can be found wild. Cranberries (highbush & lowbush), persimmons & mountain ash berries are autumn fruits worth a hike to harvest. Some friends & I spent part of last weekend picking elderberries, they're a summer fruit, but there are LOTS of them still on the trees right now & they're tasty, so maybe they can be considered an autumn fruit too.
Happy foraging!
Regards, GF.
Here in AZ the barrel cactus still have fruits on them, but I'm afraid there is not a lot of sustenance there. A nice lemony flavor, but not a lot of nutrition. Rhubarb though, that is an interesting proposition for my latitude...
Your mother smells of elderberry!
This time of year, pickings are slim. If you live in the right area, you might find camas to dig up. Fir and spruce needles are full of vitamin C and might be a nice addition with hops. Rose hips are probably plentiful, and there's some kind of current that makes fruit after the first frost if I remember right.
In the spring/summer there's also huckleberries, wild plums, choke cherries, nettles, pineapple weed, sage, mint, thistle crowns, wild raspberry, black currents, cow parsnip, wild rose petals, snow berries, spruce tips, service berries, thimbleberries, wild dock leaves, lambs quarters, dandelion root and flower, pine nuts, wild carrots, honeysuckle flowers, wild honey.. It really just depends on your area.
I grew up a little mountain child, so I just listed everything you can find in northern Idaho and eastern Washington that I remembered from being a kid. This time of year, most traditional peoples moved from the highlands to low valleys to follow grazing animals for hunting. Foraging is definitely a spring activity around there.
Now that I live in Georgia, I'm learning a whole new ecosystem.
Cool thread!
I love rose hips. Curious if they're fermentable
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
Here's a couple of rose hip wine recipes:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques46.asp
Regards, GF.
BGBC
Well-Known Member
Seems like kind of a waste to chop down a tree just for a handful of cubes.
You'd also have to season the wood, which will take time, then experiment with baking times and temps to get a proper amount of toast/char on them.
Can I just use a branch
Fallen oak wood is plentiful. A small branch or two is all you'll need to make up a bunch of oak cubes. Make sure it's freshly fallen, and not decaying. Remove the bark and cut into small chunks or cubes. Place them in a single layer on a flat surface and let them sit in a dry location. It won't take more than a few months for the moisture content to drop off with small pieces like that.
Then toast in your oven.
Then toast in your oven.
I'm curious as to why you let them dry before toasting
My grandma had a recipe for Road Apple Pie. She would ask us to walk along their road and pick some.
We never found any, so I guess I don't know how it tastes. When we were older my dad told us what road apples means.
She made a fantastic wild blueberry pie, though!
Do they bite your kids on the way to the bus stop
Most of the ones that come in the neighborhood are pretty tame, the herds in the hill are fiesty.
They call them wild horses but the truth is most are the descendants of horses that got missed on roundups or pets that got to expensive to feed. They are feral by the common definition.
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