Well, the bumblequeens are out, the trilium is yet to flower, and the morels are not up here quite yet. We were kinda hopeful since it's been pretty warm here and we recently got some rain, but no dice. I think the earliest we've found them is April 11, but I gotta check our spread of dates cuz that's. Really Early. In general, I didn't see many mushrooms in my ramble today.
What is up right now are pheasant backs, tho. These guys aren't quite as tasty as other wild shrooms, but they're deadeasy to identify and are plentiful. I like to dry them and use the powder in broths and such, but if you can get em when they're freshest, they're good cooking. IME the stemmy bits closest to the tree are tough, but you can feel it as you chop 'em so I'll cut around anything with too much resistance even in the small ones I cut specifically for eating fresh. The two big ones I cut out for drying, but honestly I would eat them too; even though they're bigger and likely older, they still felt plenty tender.
I also saw what looked like the shriveled corpses of chicken mushrooms[1], so I'm gonna have to make tours of that area every so often thru the end of summer. I haven't gone regularly shrooming for a couple seasons, but I'm feeling it this year--I at least wanna ramble thru early may for morels and a few times in June to try chanterelles.
not to be confused with hen of the woods ↩︎