My first mushroom foraging find of the year: a shiitake!
I was harvesting fiddleheads and nettles today when a big, fleshy mushroom near the forest’s edge popped into my peripheral vision. A morel? No, clearly not – it was growing on a rotting log and had a brown, frisbee-shaped cap. As I looked closer, I realized my first mushroom foraging food of the year was not a wild species at all – it was a shiitake!
Shiitake grows wild in parts of Asia, but it is only cultivated in North America. Somebody must have thrown an expired shiitake log into the woods, not knowing that the log still had some juice in it.
Well, that will probably be the only time I “find” shiitake while in foraging mode in the woods, but I can handle that – my logs reliably produce hefty crops of shiitake anyway. Shiitake is one of my favorite mushrooms, but at this time of the year I have only one mushroom on my mind: the morel.
The morel’s unreliability and tenacious resistance to cultivation have contributed to its mystique. I have heard scattered stories of people successfully cultivating black or yellow morels, but only last week did I hear a story backed by the considerable credibility of myco-visionary Paul Stamets. Stamets inoculated a nutrient-depleted patch of land with morel spawn last fall, and this April he experienced the near-miracle of bearing witness to over 100 plump morels fruiting. Stamets notes that, “It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s very exciting and very rewarding (and also very delicious!).”
Stamets’ preliminary success raises the question: would the morel still be so coveted if it could be tamed? Domestication of this capricious beast may spoil some of the early May magic, but one thing is certain – morels taste ridiculously good, period! Therefore, I heartily support Stamet’s efforts to grow morels, and you can rest assured that I’ll be experimenting with this technique myself come fall.
Alas, for now there is no hundred-strong flush of morels in my garden waiting to be harvested. This is the first ForageCast of the season. I knew it was time to begin the 2012 ForageCast when Vermont received long-overdue rain showers this week and temperatures climbed into the mid-50s. I still don’t expect yellows for at least a couple more weeks locally, and I’d be surprised even to find a black or half-free when I head off on a sunset foray in a couple hours. But it rained! And it was just the kind of rain that makes the mycelium happy – 48 hours of intermittent, but ample, showers.
Dryad’s saddle is now officially in season in Vermont and the rest of northern New England, and black morels are now officially in season throughout most of the rest of New England and the Midwest. Meanwhile, yellows are creeping their way into Pennsylvania and southern New York. Game on!
Northeastern ForageCast for the week of April 24, 2012!
I live at less than 38 degrees latitude at about 500 feet elevation in a river valley-Found oysters first in mid February during a warm wet spell on a tulip poplar stump in the yard. Late Feb the Dryad’s saddle started to pin and I knew morels could not be far behind. The orange and black cups were out and by the first week of March the Snowbank False Morels were huge. Several Shiitake showed up, but looked like summer instead of spring ones. The semilibera were next into the second week and the Black Morels by the third, plus a couple “tulip” morels (small, buff, white, yellow mix) and then the yellow’s by the last week in March. Now its cold again, so maybe another round! Didn’t find any of the yellow “tubiformis” morels (as I call them) that are like regular stem that just turn convoluted with no change in diameter. You will find wild shiitake near your logs eventually. I found one on a hemlock log last year!
Hi Mark,
That is exciting that you have already been enjoying so many delicious mushrooms! Hopefully you’ll get another round (and we’ll get our first round in VT) with the current cool, moist weather. It is possible that the shiitake I found self-colonized from a nearby log pile, but I imagine it was probably just a spent log someone threw in the woods. This topic is very interesting to me, though – I have never noticed any “wild” shiitake near my laying yard, but workshop participants often ask about this possibility (and the risk of invasiveness). Are you positive that the shiitake were growing on hemlock? That would be doubly surprising, as I have never heard of shiitake being able to colonize softwoods, let alone the self-colonization. If this ever happens again, please send photos – I’d be very curious to observe this phenomenon.
OK, it’s official……I am a nerd. Your skillfully weaved article about the advent of marvelous edible mushrooms for the spring of 2012, and the appearance of the long anticipated foragecast sent chills down my spine, and made me want to get up and do a happy dance. Is that considered a normal reaction, lol?!?!? Also does this mean I can expect to see Morels popping up around central NY soon?
Yesterday i found 8 small grey morels, today i found another 8 miniature morels just popping up, i would say the season is here in western MA
Mark,
Did you have a really dry stretch of weather end this past weekend like we did in Litchfield County, CT?
Thanks and good luck!
Steve
A total of 8 yellow morels in north-eastern MA since 4/26. Some in mulch and one in an old apple orchard. Game on is right!
Tea – I am happy to hear you are as excited about the upcoming foraging season we are. Don’t worry, that is a perfectly normal reaction – the thrill of morels can have that effect on people! Yes, you should start looking for morels in Central NY – good luck!
Matt and Larry – thanks for sharing your finds. How exciting! I am hoping the temps will warm up just a bit so morels finally arrive in Northern VT!
Really enjoyed the workshop in NYC last week. And thanks for introducing me to King Stropharia on your forage cast. I have yet to find a morel, but i do believe I’ve collected stropharia from my neighbor’s mulch. just taking a spore print now.
Mike, I’m glad you enjoyed the workshop – thanks for coming! Please post a photo of the Stroph to The Mushroom Forager’s FB wall and I can confirm ID. The stroph is an intermediate species that has some dangerous look-alikes to watch out for, but I could certainly confirm it with a photo. A close-up of the ring on the stem would also be helpful – it should be ornamented (small cog-like projections) with finely grooved gill-like lines on top.