Two pounds of smooth chanterelles, young dryad’s saddle, a few old-man-of-the-woods, a black velvet bolete and some lovely white-pored chicken of the woods.
My fatass brain didn’t see the community and thought those were chips and that you were bragging about your last shopping trip.
Yes, I love to impress guests & travelers with a good straight-from-the-bag chipchuterie tray! Works every time.
I just woke up and was sure those were chips and nachos lol
That’s a lovely haul. How will you store them?
Well, it was my first time trying the samples of black velvet bolete and Strobilomyces, so those were simply fried up and sampled one by one right away. The dryad’s saddle was fried with butter and herbs and frozen for later. The chicken of the woods was stewed in tomato sauce and served over toast a la Forager Chef’s recipe. The chanterelles are being fried with butter and frozen and given away to friends and family.
Nice haul! I need to get back out there asap. I appreciate the post for motivating me!
I expected to find the chanterelles, but everything else was pure luck over a short three miles! Good luck out there.
Total bonus this time of year! I’m in rural northern Virginia and thats a nice haul considering its mid summer.
I’ll go out this week and hit my buddies farm and see what I can find. It has cooled off here so I might get more than chanterelles and maybe chicken but not holding my breath.
Foraging is so much fun!
What do you do with old man of the woods? I deemed them not really desirable up until now…
Well, this was my first time trying them. I’ve heard that some people find the taste poor, possibly depending on subspecies or substrate, but I have no complaints. I discarded the fibrous stalk and fried them up with herbs and butter. Meaty and delicious, with a surprising tangy note. I’d absolutely harvest them again.
All right, thanks for the reply!
It still looks like it might take some getting used to, but maybe I should give this species another chance (they’re actually pretty common here some years). The way you describe the taste, it sounds a bit like the red-footed boletes, which also have a slightly sour taste.
Definitely give them a try! I was lucky, these two were actually my first time getting to try boletes. Porcini-types aren’t common in my area, and I tend to have an abundance of the really bitter Tylopilus, as well as the various red and yellow blue-bruising boletes that are tricky to ID. I’m looking forward to slowly learning and hopefully sampling more of them. Your red-footed boletes are Neoboletus?
Sorry for the late reply.
The red-footed boletes in my area are Xercomellus and are usually quite abundant in all kinds of forests and even parks and hedges. The only drawback with this group of species is that they are very susceptible to gold mold and become worm-eaten very quickly. Therefore, it really only makes sense to harvest young specimens, and because of the species’ small size, harvesting them is less worthwhile than harvesting other boletes found here.
Ah, like the smaller cracked-cap guys with the usually slender stem? I think I’ve seen a few of those, and never very large fruitings at once, either. Understandable.
Yes! Usually I havest a few young specimens at the beginnig of the walk just to be annoyed when cleaning my findings after subsequently filling the basket with more desireable species… alway the same old story. ^^’
