Food



















After heavy rains, especially at this time of year, the woods abound with mushrooms. They vary enormously in shape, size, color, feel and smell. There are more than 4,000 species of mushrooms in New Hampshire, though a quarter of them are so small a lens is needed to see them. Some, like the aptly named Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa), Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) and Deadly Cort (Cortinarius gentilus) are fatal without prompt treatment if eaten.

Others, like the rarely-encountered morels, chanterelles and giant puffballs are listed by mycologists as "choice." They are the Belgian chocolate, range-fed Argentinean beef and abalone steaks of the fungi world, untasted by most gourmets and generally unavailable to those unwilling to search for them and risk gastrointestinal distress or worse if they make a mistake.

How could one not be interested in a life form with names like Artist's Conk, Angel Wings, Fairy Ring, Earth Tongue and Corpse Finder? The latter, according to the National Audubon Society's Field Guide to Mushrooms, was once found growing over a buried body, and in another instance, atop a box holding a baby's bones.

To ignore the profusion of fungi and their differences, dangers and culinary possibilities seemed akin to ignoring the singing of birds. So last weekend, we joined more than a dozen people in a day-long wild seminar at Rumney's Quincy Bog with Rick Van de Poll, one of the state's foremost mycologists.

Anyone with even a casual interest in the subject should try to spend time in the field with an expert. And no one should risk eating a wild mushroom for the first time without expert advice. Guidebooks are helpful, but no guarantee of accurate identification, and some of them give bum advice. As Van de Poll says, there are no old, bold mycologists.

Fungi are the great recyclers, breaking down wood and other organic matter to release the nutrients that plants need to grow. Their mycorrhizae, hairy fibers akin to roots, form vast perennial networks in the soil that persist year after year to send up their fruiting bodies - mushrooms. We fanned out around the bog, baskets in hand, in search of them and came back with enough to cover a tablecloth.

There is no danger from handling poisonous mushrooms, Van de Poll explained, nor, unless one is allergic, from accidentally inhaling spores while checking its aroma, one key to mushroom identification. The mycologist identified every mushroom but one whose identity would require a microscope to ascertain. He gave the scientific name and common name, if it had one, of each and discussed its edibility or toxicity, habitat and lore.

If an edible species had no dangerous look-alikes Van de Poll noted that too, though only a few fell into that category. He urged the day's finders of edible mushrooms to take them home and try them, but just a small bite the first time, to check for an allergic reaction.

Always, he said, save a piece of the wild mushroom to show a toxicologist, just in case. Treatment has improved to the point that people who make a mistake almost never die if they seek help quickly.

We had three edible species in our basket, though we discarded one that would require boiling in multiple changes of water to be safe. The other two, a clump of beautiful orange Waxy Caps and a handful of Gray Coral, were sampled sparely and then turned into a delicious mushroom soup that must have held a dose of luck.

The next day, one a familiar walk, we found a big patch of Black Trumpets, a member of the chanterelle tribe so savory that Van de Poll suggested that the class call the dark gray lily-blossom-shaped mushrooms Death Trumpets.

"That way no one else will want to eat them. They're delicious," he said.

And so they were.