Foraged for Mushrooms Down By the Bayou Last Week

A friend of mine dropped by the house the other day and asked me what I was doing for the next hour.  I didn't have anything going on at the time, so I told him I was free.  He asked me to go foraging in the woods to try to find some Lion's Mane Mushrooms.  My friend is a member of a mushroom club where he goes out with mycologists on mushroom walks and they identify the different mushrooms that grow in our area.  At his last meeting, they found several lion's mane mushrooms.  They are good for eating as well as medicinal purposes.    We always pick oyster mushrooms and chanterelles, but I've never seen a lion's mane mushroom, so I decided to join him.  Here's what a lion's mane mushroom looks like:

Image Credit

My friend owns some property (about 11 acres) that butts up against Bayou Nezpique.  We've gone out there and found bags of chanterelles, but it is not time for chanterelles right now.  We drove out on a perfect afternoon.  The skies were blue.  The air crisp and clear.  We walked down to the water's edge, being careful not to trip on cypress knees that reached up from the ground.  Palmettos grew in clumps in the shade of the tupelos.  We heard whistling and saw a blur of movement as a bunch of wood ducks got up from the murky waters and flew through the trees at blinding speed.

We started walking upland, searching the forest floor and every dead tree we came across.  We saw plenty of deer tracks and areas where wild hogs had worked up the dirt looking for roots or acorns.  We saw so many things in the woods, but we didn't see any edible mushrooms.  I take that back, we did see a cluster of honey mushrooms, but they were past their prime and didn't look fresh anymore.

Disappointed, we walked back to the truck with empty paper bags.  We were hoping to fill them, but it appeared we were going home empty handed.  As we drove down the gravel road, there was an old willow stump on the side of the road and something white caught my eye.  My buddy stopped the truck and got out with his pocketknife and cut a nice stash of oyster mushrooms off the stump.

So we didn't go home empty-handed after all!  Once you find an area with mushrooms, it is a good idea to check it from time to time, especially a few days after a rain, as there will be more mushrooms to pick.  We refrigerated the oysters and the next morning, Tricia pulled them out of the paper bag and cleaned them up as they'll sometimes have dirt, little bugs and leaves or twigs on them.

Tricia cut up the oyster mushrooms and sauteed them in a cast iron skillet in butter with some peppers, onions, and garlic.

Once they were cooked, she cracked some fresh eggs that Benjamin had collected the night before.

Country eggs with sauteed fresh foraged wild mushrooms!

Now that's a breakfast of champions!  Maybe next time we'll find the lion's mane.