The magic of mushrooms

It’s not surprising that mushrooms, given their sometimes sinister properties and their often magical appearance, have been associated with fairies and witchcraft. The hallucinogenic properties of mushrooms have been promoted by everyone from Alice in Wonderland to Timothy Leary.

One participant has heard enough talk. “The best way to learn,” she protests, “is out in the forest.” Several of our group are recent immigrants from Poland where mushrooming is a national pastime. While they are familiar with the edible varieties in their native country, they have come today to learn which of Ontario’s abundance of fungi are good to eat.

As we head into the forest, we go no more than three metres before coming upon a flat, shiny, yellow mushroom growing close to the ground. Bowles uses his knife to carefully carve it from its bed of pine needles. “Pay attention to where it is growing,” he tells us. “What kind of tree is it under? Is it growing in the earth or on rotting wood?” These factors can provide important clues to a mushroom’s identity.

He turns this one over. It has no gills; instead, the underside of the cap is porous and yellow like a sponge, which means it belongs to the Boletus family of mushrooms. These are known as sponge mushrooms and this one in particular is a Suillus americanus, also known as a chickenfat suillus or white pine bolete. Bowles tells us it is edible. Nevertheless, Bowles advises us to peel the slime off the mushroom before cooking. “It’s bitter,” he says, licking it quickly and wrinkling his nose. None of us has the nerve to follow his example.

As members of the group fan out into the woods in search of mushrooms, Bowles notes that “there are mushroom deaths every year. But there’s no need for it if you’re careful. It’s amazing the way people approach this. They just want to know what they can eat. They don’t want to take the time to understand about mushrooms.”

Earth stars, for instance. Bowles produces one of these strange creatures (Astraeus hygrometricus) from his basket. You can’t eat this member of the puffball family, he explains, but its eccentric appearance (with its spore-sac heads and collared fringe, it looks like baby birds nestled in rotted stumps) should be reward enough.

As the foragers return at intervals to show their finds to him, Bowles’s somewhat professorial manner softens, and his passion for his subject animates the afternoon. Someone presents him with what looks like a delicate piece of the whitest sea coral. Bowles immediately identifies it as coxcomb coral (Clavulina cristata). He pronounces it edible.

Someone else produces a similar chunk of fungus, but on closer inspection it turns out to be straight-branched coral (Ramaria stricta), edible too, but bitter-tasting according to the guides.

Finally, to the relief of our Polish companions, Dan, an arborist from Barrie, hands Bowles a cluster of honey-coloured mushrooms with broad, smooth caps and a flared white ring on the light brown stalk. He found the mushrooms at the foot of a white pine and is fairly certain they are Armillaria mellea, or honey mushroom.

Not only is the honey mushroom edible, it is plentiful in these woods, and arborists like Dan encourage people to harvest them since they contain a bacillus that is harmful to the pine trees that act as their hosts.

When I find a chunk of moss-covered log studded with dozens of minuscule yellow-orange mushrooms and show it to Bowles, he cups the piece of wood in his hands and croons, “Oh, this is one of my favourite little guys.” Beautiful and delicate, though not particularly tasty, it’s known as fuzzy foot (Xeromphalina campanella).

Mushrooming, we discover, is a whole new way of experiencing the local forests that we have hiked through hundreds of times. Not since early spring, during my annual search for morels, have I kept my eyes on the ground so closely. Never before have I noticed the abundance and variety of this eccentric and mythical chapter of local ecology. But mushrooms are not the only miraculous creatures sometimes overlooked in the woods.

As I poke through the dead leaves, I spot what I think is a salamander. I pick it up but it scurries out of my hand and under a log. Later, when I mention it to Bowles, his eyes light up. “Where?” he demands. I point back in the general direction from which I had come. The woods are thick and silent around us.

“It ran away, under a log,” I say.

Bowles’s eagerness is palpable. But even he can see the impossibility of finding the tiny creature again. I describe it to him – brownish pink with red spots, about six centimetres long.

“That’s not a salamander,” says Bowles, “that’s a red-spotted newt.”

When I looked it up in my Peterson field guide that evening, I discovered that the critter we saw was a red eft, which is the red-spotted newt in the juvenile terrestrial stage of its development. Red-spotted newts begin life as aquatic larvae, go through a juvenile (red eft) stage, and then enter their aquatic adult stage. I was astonished to learn that the red eft’s terrestrial life lasts up to nine years, which would explain what ours was doing deep in the woods, far from any body of water.

By 1 p.m., most of us have baskets overflowing with dozens of different mushrooms, and brains overloaded with mycological minutiae. Bob Bowles assures us that we now have the tools to identify most mushrooms with confidence. The important thing is to be careful (when in doubt, throw it out) and to avoid what he refers to as “LBMs” (little brown mushrooms).

Indeed, I notice in the weeks that follow, before killing frosts bring mushroom season to an end, that the lawns and fields, the woods and barnyards are littered with LBMs, some of which are edible and some not. Even for experienced foragers, LBMs are nearly impossible to distinguish.

Back at my kitchen table, I peruse the dozen or so different mushrooms before me. Thanks to Bowles’s guidance, I have set aside what I’m certain are edible ones: honey mushrooms and white pine bolete. I’m fairly sure about the comb tooth (Hericium coralloides) and a formidable looking fungus that I’ve identified as slippery Jill (Suillus salmonicolor). My guidebook declares it edible. As for the rest, I err on the side of caution and toss them in the garbage, including a striking scarlet mushroom with a white stalk that could either be rosy russula (Russula rosacea) … or “the sickener” (Russula emitica). I can’t decide. (I also throw out what I think must be tippler’s bane (Coprinus atramentarius). It’s supposed to be edible, but must never be combined with alcohol because it contains a toxin that is similar to antabuse – a medicine that produces extreme sensitivity to alcohol – in its effects.)

One by one, I sauté a single slice of each of the four mushrooms I have set aside. Then, ever so carefully, I taste them. They are delicious, woodsy and full-flavoured, except for the slippery Jill, which has an unpleasant gelatinous texture and turns a peculiar shade of grey when cooked.

Satisfied, I add the rest to the pan with a finely chopped shallot. Our roast chicken dinner is enlivened by this simple side dish. And we have arrived: careful mycophagists after all.
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Cecily Ross is a senior editor at The Globe and Mail. Her book, Love in the Time of Cholesterol, was published by Viking Canada.

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