Searching for ‘Shrooms with the Mt. Troll – 015

Direct mp3 download.

Link to episode 15 on Libsyn.

This week on Homesteads and Homeschools, the Liberty Hippie sits down with the Mt. Troll to talk about foraging for mushrooms. Foraging can be an excellent way to supplement the pantry, learn about your surroundings, and in the the Mt. Troll’s experience, supplement your income. We talk about how the Mt. Troll got into foraging and some tips for beginners. We also discuss how he finds chefs and some of the difficulties maintaining those relationships.

The Mt. Troll Links

• Mt. Troll Foraging on Facebook
• Mt. Troll Foraging on YouTube
• Mushroom Expert

After the interview, the Liberty Hippie briefly discusses some more pointers about mushrooming, and throws out a word of warning when considering an “online homeschool” program through the State.

The Online Homeschool Links

• District Agrees to Stop Calling Online Program a Homeschool
• Georgia Connections Academy

If you’re enjoying the show, please support it on Patreon and get access to our fortnightly bonus material (and more!) (and if you don’t like Patreon, you can sign up to support the show on BitBacker!) You can also do your Amazon shopping through our Amazon link. Please subscribe and leave a review on the Apple iTunes Store (or on any podcatcher, though iTunes is the most important). You can also like us on facebook and share the show from there. We are on Twitter as @HSandHSpod, and sometimes even on Instagram, too. And don’t forget to join the The Homesteaded Homeschool Forum to be a part of the conversation.

And don’t forget to pay Nicky P. a visit either at Sounds Like Liberty, or on bandcamp, and pick up a subscription to the Freedom Song 365 project.

Link to show notes for episode 014 with Arvin Vohra of the Vohra Method.

Those Slimy ‘Shrooms: Hygrophorus flavodiscus

When I first started learning about mushrooms, I found myself under the tutelage of an amazing mushroomer and teacher; ripe in his years, he had spent many seasons in the fields and forests, walking along roadsides, kicking over ‘shrooms as a hobby. After retirement, he had gone on to volunteer for the state poison control department offering help in cases of mushroom poisoning. He was also an excellent artist. He has, of course, since passed, but he did not go without leaving me with a wealth of information.

These Yellow-centered waxy caps, Hygrophorus flavodiscus, were some of the first really distinct mushrooms I found in mass quantity that I was quite confident of in my identification. Of course, before I cooked them all up for dinner, I wanted to verify with the master. I emailed him pictures of the ‘shrooms, the spore print, and detailed my identification, then said something to the effect of, “I can’t wait to cook them up!” His response was typical: “Well done on the ID, but why would you eat that?”

H. flavodiscus is covered in slime. That shiny coating in the photograph is not dew, rain, or melted frost; it is slime reminiscent of a wet slug, and as they like to grow under hemlock trees, they are often coated in shed needles and other detritus, but this did not stop me. I spent hours that night, scraping the slime off with a paring knife and foolishly rinsing them under the faucet. When I had finally cleaned my bounty, I cooked them up and had a heaping mess of something edible, but certainly not worthy of the preparation time. I emailed my teacher back, confirming that, in fact, there is no reason to eat them.

Later that fall, when I was out ‘shrooming, I went back to where I found them the first time, and could not help but pick more. (It is a compulsion.) I had learned a bit about cooking mushrooms since I first found them, and I had also dabbled in raising slugs as food. Slugs, like snails, are edible and when cooked thoroughly, are quite safe to eat, but they have that same slimy coating as these waxy caps. You can remove the slimy coating from a slug by dropping them in vinegar, or you can use the slimy coating as something of an egg bath before rolling them in bread crumbs and frying them up; H. flavodiscus would prove to be no different. Rather than spend hours cleaning and preparing the ‘shrooms, this time I picked the debris off, rolled them in bread crumbs and fried them up. They were delicious and still remain one of my favorite foraged fare.

Willowy Oysters

I love mushrooms. I’ve always been slightly intrigued by them – maybe it’s because my mother told me to stay away from them? I think part of what piqued my interest in mushrooms is the amount of diversity in them. They come in all colors and seem to pop up overnight. They exist in a network of mycorrohizae that we walk on and around all the time, but are totally unaware of. But, the thing with mushrooms is that once you open your eyes to them, they seem to be everywhere. Now not all of them are edible – and I’ll write a post about that soon – but a good many of them are, and if you’ve priced mushrooms in the store, (not just the white button ones) you’ll know that they can get fairly expensive. So whenever I find edible mushrooms, I get really excited.

Dirty little willow.

One of the things I noticed about our house when we moved in three years ago, was a willow tree near the side walk. My wife loves the willow, and I admit they are pretty trees, but they get big, they drop lots of leaves, they’re heavy, and they have a pretty big root structure; I certainly don’t want a willow growing 20 feet from the house. In fact, it is already starting to buckle some of our sidewalk. So I put in my head that I would take it down in the winter; winter came and passed into spring, and the willow still stood. Part of it was lazy, part of it was other tasks, and part of it was wanting to root a twig to move the willow somewhere else where we could enjoy it in the future, after all they make a dynamite shade tree.

Three years later, and the willow still stands. I think this spring will be it’s last, but instead of using it for firewood, I have another plan. You see, after a recent rain storm, I went outside to find the willow full of dinner: Oyster mushrooms! Now I got out there a little late and these guys got a little old (see the yellowing?), but they aren’t buggy which is a huge win for Oysters. While oysters aren’t always the best, they can make a mean burger when cooked right. So now, instead of cutting down the willow and putting in the woodpile to cure, I’ll be relocating the willow logs to a damp, shady area and will hopefully be able to keep the willow log producing dinner for sometime to come.

Hooray for mushrooms!