A Foraging We Will Go, Mushroom Hunting in Oregon 82

Here in the Pacific Northwest we are lucky to have such lovely forests, as I mentioned in an early post, I found a mushroom hunter from Eugene, OR - who was interested in guest posting here on Renaissance Culinaire. Please note the orange icons with skull & cross bones, these reference poisonous or un-edible species of mushroom. Here is his post:

Hello, chanterelle hunters! The problem with yellow footed Chanterelles (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca^W) is that when they are plentiful, the price falls.

Everyone with a vehicle is suddenly a Chanterelle hunter. Get 'em while you can, because soon you will not see a chanterelle until next fall. I love hunting chanterelles, but making money with them is hard. When Chanterelles are abundant, more people go picking and the price drops.

For me, mushrooming is not about money. It is about finding those perfect beautiful patches in the forest. Hunting is about finding one chanterelle and then looking around and seeing a hundred more chanterelles. It is a beautiful sight. Hunting is about getting our side in the rain and being active. There are easier pickings in the mushroom patch than chanterelles, but this takes more knowledge.
　

 In the fall, what  I go after is the Common Meadow Mushroom (Agaricus campestris ^W -) that grow on lawns and fields. Meadow mushrooms are abundant between rains when the soil humus takes off.

(photo right - credit Lee Norris)

The Meadow Mushroom is listed as choice by the National Autobahn Field manual. The manual says that they grow in late August and September, but I have found meadow mushrooms much later in the season in late September throughout October.

The National Autobahn manual does not say anything about meadow mushrooms growing in rings, but I have seen them growing that way.

                                                       
Do not confuse the Meadow Mushroom with California Agaricus (Agaricus californicus). Both are similar in appearance but California Agaricus will make you sick.

 (On  left Photo by Lee Norris; Right, Photo  Credit © Fred Stevens)


As you look at the two pictures, the left has older  California Agaricus mushrooms and the picture on the right features a  younger version of California Agaricus - this species  has a very noticible identifier - a ring (looks kind of like a skirt) higher on the stalk (which may appear broken or ragged as the mushroom matures), this is the best indication as to what variety they are. The Meadow Mushroom has a half ring, faint ring or even no ring, where the California Agaricus' ring is much fuller.

The Felt Ring Agaricus (Agaricus hondensis Murr),Yellow-foot Agaricus(Agaricus xanthodermus^W)and Western Flat-topped Agaricus(Agaricus meleagris) are other species confusable with the Meadow Mushroom that are poisonous.

Sometimes mushrooms can be identified by the odor, feel and even the mass. Some grow on in fields and lawns and others only in wooded areas. If you go out and identify, you will get to know what they are.

(photo credit Wikipedia)

I like Waxy Caps. (see: Hygrophorus Agaricales ^W, Hygrocybe coccinea, Hygrophorus chrysodon, Hygrophorus occidentalis). Waxy caps favor colder weather and grow much later in the season. Waxy caps have a slimy cap to the touch and there is no other species confusable with the same cap. Waxy caps are not too tasty, but waxy caps kill my appetite and are good for weight loss. I like to cut up a few waxy caps and put them in scrambled eggs in the morning. I can go until supper without feeling hungry.

(photo credit Wikipedia)

Slippery Jacks (Suillus luteus^W) are edible, but their appearance in the field is unappetizing. Slippery Jacks grow mainly later in the season when it is cold and wet. I always think that I will build a dryer and dry a lot of them because they are so abundant. The manual says that you can get diarrhea from eating the slime on the cap, so it is best to peel the skin off after they are dried. I have put dried Slippery Jacks in meatloaf, and they have a sweet taste.

Bon appetite, But do not believe anything I say about wild mushrooms. This article is not meant as a field guide and do not trust anyone else’s word for identification. Years ago, a knowledgeable mushroom hunter died in Eugene. He did so because he trusted the identification ability of one of his students. The student was a knowledgeable hunter who got a   Destroying Angel, a.k.a Death Cap (Amanitaceae Agaricales see: Amanita phalloides , Amanita virosa ) ,a very poisonous species, confused with a Western Lawn Puffball, which is edible. He did not check out what he was eating.

“Know thy mushrooms for thyself!” There are people that know what they are doing with mushrooms but there are also many that think they do. Research your wild mushrooms for yourself, and leave alone what you do not know.

This brings me to the second axiom of mushroom hunting. You can generally trust field manual like the Autobahn Society, for what mushrooms are edible. I say generally but not always. For example, many people really like the Yellow Footed Chanterelle. I am a person that can not eat Chanterelles. If I eat Chanterelles, they will likely come right back up. Go slow with any wild food that you do not know.

By Lee Norris^*

Lee Norris can be found contributing on http://www.stimulusbike.com/ and on Helium. His personal website - Sadlebutts Corner is a cycling website.

For More Info On Forgaging - Check Out These Great Guides:

• Part 1 - Publications on Truffles
• Part 2 - Publications on Mushrooms
• Part 3 - Publications on Foraging Edible Plants 
  
  
  

^*This article has been edited, formatted and embelished with links & additional pictures by Renaissance Culinaire's Owner. All text & photos, copyright stays with the respective author(s) .

Guest Post: Modern Woman's Guide to Holiday Cooking 18

As the months start to spiral onward, Fall 2008 has arrived and Thanksgiving is fast approaching. I think that any one of us - regardless of cooking level or knowledge can remember sometime in our holiday past when dinner was anything but perfect and kitchen errors were left ingrained in our memories forever.


Post Forward: Awhile ago I put out a call for interesting stories related to cooking, that would be featured on Renaissance Culinaire , and one of the responses I received was from April, who is a resident of Portland, OR.

This is what she wrote:

It is a humorous piece. I did not know if you wanted only articles that were written by 'real chefs'. Obviously, I am not, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway. - April M Whidden

April Whidden's Guest Post:

This year I did something I had never done before. I hosted our families traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Since the tragic salmonella poisoning of 1997, my family had voted (68-1) that I should never again be allowed to set foot inside a kitchen. Determined to redeem my inner domestic goddess, I crafted an ingenious plan to ensure that I would be the one cooking the bird this year.

Quite surprisingly, saying "please,please,please,please" for three hours straight works as well on my mother now as it did when I was a kid.

"This will be the best Thanksgiving ever." I told my husband as I happily planned the seating arrangement. Having only four chairs I had worked out a course by course rotation schedule to accommodate all of the guests, provided Aunt Tessie could not make it who would take up two seats alone.

"We need new placemats?" I reminded him, eying the plastic Easter Bunnies that still graced our table.

"We just got those." He said, gripping his wallet. "Just color in some feathers and a waddle."

I narrowed my eyes at him and he changed the subject.

"You inviting your brother?" He asked nervously.

"I had planned to." I replied. My brother was an anti-consumerist vegan who owned a million books and dvds which explained why shopping and holidays were wrong. My husband sighed helplessly.

"You know, you've never cooked a turkey." He informed me, as if this was something I had not considered.

"How hard can it be?" I asked him. "After all, it's just a big chicken. If the colonel can do it, then so can I."

Even so, his ominous words had me a bit worried, and reluctantly I sought out the wisdom of my mother.

"How were you thinking of preparing it?" She asked.

"I was thinking of brining it." I informed her, feeling knowledgeable.

"Brining?" Her voice grew louder, filling with alarm. "Do you even know what brining is?"

I hated to admit that I did not. I had read about it in a recent copy of Better Wives magazine while I was in the Super Cuts last week. Unfortunately, I had only read the part that said "Want to start a new Thanksgiving tradition? Try brining your turkey this year." before the stylist called me up to the chair.

"I'm starting a new Thanksgiving tradition." I told her simply, offering no more.

There was a long pause over the phone, followed by my mother's voice uttering an old Catholic prayer.

She is not catholic.

According to a google on the Internet, brining, as it turned out, is a very laborious process of salting the inside and the outside of a turkey, letting it sit overnight, and then rinsing the whole mess off again before baking it. This was way more work than I had intended and I really did not look forward to polishing a turkeys innards. Fortunately for me there were a gazillion other turkey recipes on the net and I found one that was not too difficult, after a bit of personal tweaking.

"Mom," I said, calling to report the change in turkey status, "I decided to use a recipe instead."

"April, I'm so glad honey!" She sounded so proud of me, as if I had just discovered the cure for seasonal hay fever. "What does the recipe call for? Rosemary? Sage? Thyme?"

I blinked and tried to recall where I had heard those words before. Weren't they the gifts from the wise men? I glanced up at my three-gallon bottle of Albertson's Season All and told my mom I had it all under control.

"Would you like me to make the stuffing?"she asked. I could tell in her voice that she was afraid I would, heaven forbid, use a boxed mix. "I can have it ready in the morning and you can swing by to pick it up and stuff the turkey before baking it."

"I wasn't planning on cooking the turkey with the stuffing. It will ruin my recipe." I looked at my meticulously written notes, scribbled in crayon, which hung on the refrigerator door.

Defrost turkey 2 hours...bake for four.

Any variation to this recipe and I knew I was in trouble.

The morning of feast day I woke up bright and early, eager to begin our families newest Thanksgiving tradition. It was almost 11. Wanting to be in a positive frame of mind before I started the actual cooking process I lounged about in my pajamas for a few hours catching up on Desperate Housewives via my trusty Tivo. At 1 PM, during a very good Susan scene, my mother called me to ask how the dinner was coming along. "Fine, mom." I told her absently, trying to read Susan's lips.

When I was little my mom used to get up at 5 AM to start preparation for the day. She began by making the pies, cutting the vegetables, setting the table, and then baking the turkey. She was busy from the moment she woke up until the time she went to bed, attempting to make our meal as wonderful and perfect as a Norman Rockwell painting.

But my mother had lacked the vision, not to mention the modern conveniences I had at my disposal. There was really no reason to waste one's entire day cooking one meal that would be eaten in less than fifteen minutes, when you could achieve the same results in a few hours. At 2 PM I removed the turkey from the freezer and let it sit on the counter to thaw while I tried out bold new hairstyles profiled in Celebrity Monthly. I certainly did not want guests coming over when I had my everyday hair on.

"Mom, turkey's still frozen." my son called to me from the kitchen. Glancing up at the clock I realized he must be mistaken. It was 4:30. It had had a good two and a half hours to go from solid to liquid form. I scratched my head, perplexed. Perhaps I had done a bit too much tweaking.

I put it in the microwave for an hour, using the popcorn cycle repeatedly.

Viola! Like magic, at 3 PM it was thawed, thanks to my incredible foresight to buy the microwave with the popcorn cycle my husband said we would never use.

The bird was small. It had been the Charlie Brown tree of turkeys and I had bought it because I was sure that no one else would not. I had imagined it, cold and alone in the store, wanting desperately to be a part of someone's special dinner this holiday season. I had created a whole Thanksgiving movie about it in my head, a heartwarming tale in which I had given it love and a home...The Littlest Turkey.

Somehow the popcorn cycle had done more than defrost the turkey, it had aged it. It was no longer cute and sweet, but shriveled and old.

"This thing okay to eat?" Asked my husband, uncertain.

"It's fine." I said. "That's how all turkeys look before you cook them" He shrugged and held open a turkey bag and I dropped it in.

Thwak!

That is the sound that turkeys make when they fall through turkey bags onto the floor. It is also interesting to note they do not make a sound at all when they slide across that same floor.

"Catch it!" I cried, panicked. My dogs had entered the room and were circling the bird like bandits on a wagon train. The only thing that kept them at bay was they could not reconcile the smell of turkey with the look of the leather-skinned bird that lay sadly on the linoleum. That would not last long.

My husband hurdled the chairs and seized the turkey just as three hungry canine jaws snapped shut behind him. It was a close call.

I finally put the turkey into the oven and was relieved to actually turn the dial to 325 F °. My job was done. I suppose it would have been wise of me to have preheated the oven, but I was already straying dangerously away from the recipe as it was.

With that, I went off to pick up my vehicular-impaired family. I loaded in my brother and his wife, laden with the traditional vegan goodies, and my mother and dad, carrying so many pies it looked like a circus juggling act. How we all fit in I will never know. The only sound on that still Thanksgiving night came as my dad yelled for me to slow down as we approached speed bumps at a dizzying three-miles-per-hour. Somehow we made it back to my home, safe and sound.

When we arrived, I hesitated at the door. I tried to imagine what my mother would encounter and I felt a pang of guilt. Thanksgiving and holidays had always been important to her. No matter how terrible the times had been for us as a family, she had always made holidays special. Somehow I felt like I had ruined this for her. I admitted to myself that perhaps I had not given the care and the love to the meal that she had. I wanted to warn her, to apologize for what might come. She seemed so happy, I could not do this to her. I would let her find out on her own.

The ghost's of holidays past were with me that night. The house, which only hours before had smelled of burnt leather and wet dog, felt warm and welcoming. The smells that came from the oven made my stomach lurch with hunger. My husband and son had cleaned in my absence and had even lit some scented candles. It felt like a real Thanksgiving.

There is this a part of me that hoped for some drama that night. Drama is always fun to write about. I had hoped that my brother would go on his traditional rant about the wrong-doings of the pilgrims. I had hoped that my mother would yell at me for not following turkey protocol. I had even hoped to burn the bird. None of that occurred. Everyone was happy and merry and the turkey turned out tender and delicious. It was a perfectly lovely night. I had not ruined Thanksgiving after all. Perhaps they will even let me cook dinner for Easter. After all, how difficult can baking a ham be?



This original article is authored by April M. Whidden , who resides in Portland, OR , who is a freelance writer. Permission was given to republish this Article. 2005 © April M. Whidden. All Rights Reserved and stay with the Author.

Guest Post With Kate Jacobs : On Food Memories From Childhood 4

I got a chance to ask Kate Jacobs, author of The Friday Night Knitting Club; And her most recent foodie geared novel Comfort Food , a very personal question.

RC: How do you feel food memories from childhood shape us into adults?

Image © Kate Jacobs.

KJ: We all have wonderful memories of meals shared with families, sitting around the table with the Thanksgiving turkey and summer barbecues eating corn on the cob.

I love birthday cake,

just like the main character Gus in my new novel Comfort Food, and I remember my sister decorating a cake that looked like a pizza with all the toppings for my fifth grade sleepover party. That was the birthday I got a puppy, Pepsi, who was my first Springer Spaniel and one of my dearest friends ever.

It’s all connected for me: the cake, the friends, the puppy. That was one of the best days of my life!

And I love to recall having fresh fruit pie at my grandmother’s house

Made with cherries that my brothers and sisters had just picked off the trees in her yard. Amazing. Those are the meals you wish you could fly back in a time machine and savor again and again, and also enjoy the company of family who aren’t here anymore.


But sometimes food isn’t just about family. Sometimes it’s about culture and identity.

I remember how, growing up in Canada, I always thought of S’mores as being particularly American, and as such I was fascinated by them. Now, I was never a Girl Guide (that’s Canadian for a Girl Scout) and so I didn’t go camping and so on. Instead, I saw Archie & Betty talking about them in the comics: It was just this American cultural go-to that seemed so different to me. Well, this was something I had to get in on, you know?

I recall trying to make some in the microwave on July 4: I was always a very pro-American Canadian. (And now I’m American and Canadian, so it’s really worked out for me.) But, anyway, back to my little experiment, which even involved a trip biking to the corner store to use some allowance money to invest in some very American Hershey chocolate. I took some graham crackers from the cupboard, put on several squares of chocolate, little mini marshmallows because that’s what we had at home, and topped it off with another graham cracker. I wrapped up the whole thing tightly in waxed paper and cooked the hell out of it the microwave. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. Definitely gooey, definitely sweet. Though a S’more lacks a certain something something when it doesn’t have the roasting from the open fire.

I must say my early culinary tastes were quite influenced by comic books

I read a lot of and all types of comic books as a kid. I also saw a Dennis the Menace that had an activity page that included a tip on pickling carrots. The whole gist was that if you put carrots in a jar of pickles and let them soak overnight, the carrots would taste pickled. Well, duh: That’s what my 34-year-old self says. My 8-year-old self was utterly entranced as though Julia Child herself had made the suggestion. I would get very upset if my mother did not save the juice when we finished a jar of pickles. After all, I needed that for my Dennis-the-Menace carrots! Making those pickles felt like a sign of independence and worldliness: I had my own special “thing.”

Food is so much more than just calories and nutrition.
It’s also captures a moment, an emotion, with taste and aroma. And feel. Think of the sensation of a melting Popsicle running down your fingers on a hot summer day and try not to smile. Food can be good times, you know? And that’s what I wanted to capture in Comfort Food. This feeling of laughter and celebration and happiness.










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