Hand and field guide for scale.
Now to decide what to do with them all 😅.
Very nice. I wish I could learn just a few mushrooms. I would love to harvest some but I have zero knowledge about it for now.
Chanterelles are the best beginner mushroom to forage. They grow almost everywhere, have only one toxic look-alike (and it’s very easy to differentiate), and a very unique color and shape. The defining characteristic of chanterelles is their false gills, meaning on the underside they are either completely smooth or have small ridges that vaguely mimic the typical fanned gills that other mushrooms have. Their color ranges from pale yellow to red (mostly orange, right in the middle) and most have a distinctive irregular vase shape. The way I would describe the appearance is like sheets or curtains billowing in the wind. The only potentially dangerous look-alike is the Jack o’ lantern mushroom which only grows in the eastern US, has real gills, and glows in the dark (kinda hard to forget and easy to identify, so eating it by mistake is incredibly unlikely as long as you know about it). I recommend finding someone who has foraged before to go with you the first time, but after that if you stick to just chanterelles you’ll be fine.
I’ll be honest, this looks at a glance like you just cut off a bunch of horse toys and gathered their legs
Don’t be judgey, man’s gotta have a hobby
I have been bringing some home the past couple weeks as well. I like them in sauces mostly as they do not have a strong flavor in my opinion. Whenever it is muggy and I am sweating outside, I know it is time to hunt chanterelle.
Funny. I think they have one of the strongest non-mushroom tastes. You know how most mushrooms taste mainly like mushroom with a sprinkle of another taste added? Chanterelles are the other way around. They taste a little bit like mushrooms but mostly like chanterelles.
I love to cook them in butter, salt, and pepper.
I think there’s a good bit of variation in flavor by region and species. The small smooth chanterelles have more of the general earthy mushroom flavor, the flavolateritius ones that have more of a curtains shape are very nutty and meaty with very little earthy taste, and the Appalachian chanterelles are even a little bit spicy. Those are the ones I find in my area, anyway.
Cinnabar chanterelles, despite being plentiful by me, dont really taste like much.
The ones I find in my area are nowhere to be found. 😭 Maybe someone got greedy, maybe they didn’t come, I don’t know.
