By MATTHEW LAWRENCE
This story was originally published in the Warwick Beacon, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories.
Read this story in its original form and all other Beacon stories by clicking here.
JOHNSTON — If you feel daunted by the idea of picking your own mushrooms, you are not alone. Ryan and Emily Bouchard explain that it’s cultural, that fear of mushrooms is common in the United States and dates back hundreds of years to the British colonizers, who came from the south of England. They didn’t like mushrooms there, either. The stigma has traveled to other places that were also colonized by the Brits, like India. In contrast, wild mushroom foraging is common and celebrated in other countries like Italy, France, Germany, and throughout Eastern Europe.
The Bouchards founded the non-profit Mushroom Hunting Foundation to educate people about the many fungi growing around them. Together they present educational workshops around the northeast, give guided mushroom and wild plant walks, and offer cooking demonstrations so people know what to do with the mushrooms they’ve foraged. Ryan has written a number of field guides for mushroom foraging, while Emily has written about wild plants, a related but different passion. (Mushrooms are fungi, a completely separate kingdom of life on earth.)
The couple discovered foraging in 2009, shortly after they first met. “We always loved walking in the woods together,” says Emily. “But then we took a great class by Joe Metzen of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island. After that we started learning a whole lot from mushroom books, eventually meeting most of the authors of those books and learning from them.” They began teaching their own classes in 2012.
The first thing to know is that some mushrooms are edible and some mushrooms are poisonous, and it’s important that you don’t try eating any of them until you know for sure what they are. That’s rule number one. The tricky part is that some mushrooms that are fine can look a lot like some mushrooms that are toxic, and vice versa. “When in doubt, throw it out,” the Bouchards repeatedly stressed during a recent presentation at the Marian J. Mohr Library in Johnston.
There are other guidelines. Don’t eat anything you find on the side of the highway or on a golf course, because there are too many pesticides and pollutants in the ground. Don’t eat anything with mold growing on it. Overall, they recommend consulting a guide before trying anything. The Foundation is also happy to identify mushrooms based on photos sent in by amateur foragers. “People send photos all the time,” Ryan says. “In a rainy month I’ll field literally thousands of photo questions.”
A handful of mushrooms are safe for beginners, they say, like the smoky tasting Black Trumpets that grow in Rhode Island’s mossy stream banks. Those are recognizable by their hollow centers and dark skins (hence the name Black Trumpet), and they look unique enough that you wouldn’t really confuse them with any poisonous mushrooms growing in the region.
If you do find poisonous mushrooms, the good news is that it’s okay to touch them, Emily says, or even to smell them. You won’t get sick just from picking one up. But eating them is a different story, one that could give you cramps or land you in the hospital, or worse. And, of course, there is also the occasional psychedelic mushroom, like the Laughing Gyms that grow in New England every September.
If you’re still not convinced because you think that mushrooms all taste the same, that might be because the ones in the supermarket mostly are the same, Ryan told the group at Mohr Library. Whether brown or white, baby bella (crimini) mushrooms, button mushrooms, and portobello mushrooms are actually all the same species (Agaricus bisporus), just picked at different stages of growth. Meanwhile, different species of mushrooms are growing all around us, each with its own short growing season.
Wild mushroom foraging is very weather dependent, because they need moisture to grow. “This year we had an amazing spring season, with some favorite areas of ours getting plenty of rain,” says Emily. “This summer has been more sparse, though, with little rain to spur their growth. When the rain is good, the season can go on and on. In a good rainy summer, we’ll return to a nice patch of Black Trumpets maybe a dozen times!”
“The fall is probably the most popular mushroom season,” Ryan says. “But towards the end of October, the Hen of the Woods and other fall mushrooms start to become scarce, and most people think the fun is over. What they don’t know is that there is a whole late fall season. Different species come around in November. Many of these are challenging to identify and not recommended for beginners.
“But we go after delicious things like the Sand Laccaria, the Shaggy Mane, Shaggy Parasols, Brick Tops, Blewits, other things, some great Tricholoma species… And then of course there is December. By then, the mushroom season has pretty much come to a halt, especially if it’s freezing most of the time. If it’s a milder December…well, it’s pretty much only the Fall Oysters at that point, but sometimes in December you can find more Fall Oyster Mushrooms than any other season.”
“And don’t forget Chaga!” Emily says. “That species is hard as a rock—it’s not actually eaten, but rather is used to brew Chaga tea—and it can be collected literally any time of year, even during a blizzard. Its coal-black surface stands out against the snow, and the white bark of the birch trees it grows on, so it makes a great winter foraging goal. It’s a tradition from Siberia.”
“One time I thought I saw a black bear,” Ryan says, “but then did a double take…Nope, it was a Chaga mushroom, the biggest one I’ve ever found! Not the size of a bear, in the end…but maybe the size of a large microwave oven. Eighteen pounds. And I was skiing at the time. I must have looked odd, skiing down the rest of the way in the beginner’s “snowplow” position with a very large object held under my arm, wrapped up in a ski parka.”
“Mushroom hunting is always an adventure,” says Emily. “We would go on all day with mushroom stories if you let us!”
William Hall Library on Broad Street in Cranston is hosting “Edible Wild Mushrooms of Rhode Island: Fall Season” on Oct 9, from 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.
According to the library website, this special class includes a cooking demonstration with an opportunity to sample some mushrooms. With their slideshow of all-local photography, Ryan and Emily will explain the science and the safety rules of mushroom hunting and then take a closer look at some fall species they consider “safe for beginners” to identify and cook with.
The session is free and open to the public, but space is limited. Registration is required. Please register on the William Hall website or contact the library for assistance.
Editor’s note: Lawrence Matthew writes for the Warwick Beacon.
