Forage Fellows 🍄🌱

Picked along the North Coast of California. Winter chanterelles, black trumpets, hedgehog mushrooms, and a few golden chanterelles which are not visible I don’t think.

We also picked a decent number of candy caps, which will be dried and used later:

Sorry this isn't actually foraging per se, but the only kind of people who'd grow these are probably foragers anyway. I've been growing them for a couple years, but this is the first year I had enough to bother trying to eat them! From two plants we got about 1/2 a cup.

So my question is, does anyone have any tips for actually eating these things?? We tried soaking them for 24 hours and boiling them for 2 hours, and they were still inedibly bitter! I'm thinking maybe brining them, an alkaline soak, splitting them all in half, and/or swapping out the cooking water a few times. At least one of those ought to work hopefully. It'll have to wait till next year though, we wasted these ones lol.

Sadly, there are only a few small areas of ancient forest left in my area, but they are so diverse and abundant. They're always a treat to explore.

Ochre brittlegill (Russula ochroleuca), stump puffballs (Lycoperdon / Apioperdon pyriforme), amethyst deceiver (Laccaria amethystina), Common puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum), clouded agaric (Clitocybe nebularis), and what I believe to be red cracking bolete (Boletus / Xerocomellus chrysenteron) which are very abundant here. I did find some more wood mushrooms (Agaricus sylvicola) and green cracked brittlegills (Russula virescens), but I didn't take a picture for some reason.

Agaricus arvensis or campestris. I can never tell horse and field mushrooms apart, but no yellow staining and a pleasant mushroom and mild anise smell. I found several rings. Unfortunately, the maggots beat me to most of them. Also found a fair few meadow puffballs (Lycoperdon pratense) that had unfortunately just started to spore, and some parrot waxcaps (Gliophorus psittacinus) which, whilst edible, are far too small and slimy to bother with.

I did also find either a rather beautiful pure bright white amanita. Either a Destroying angel (Amanita virosa) or white dapperling (Leucoagaricus leucothites), im not knowledgeable enough to tell. Whilst fun to find, it's definitely not one I brought home.

My town have a plantation of Juglans nigra. These nut trees don't grow usually in France yet when I decided to have a taste of them, I thought I would handle it like another nut. But they are different.

I try to have the green shell to dry completely before peeling them off. But I couldn't so I went with a knive to get ride of it before they turn bad. The nuts are smaller than the one that grows here but so hard I can't crack them with a nutcraker.

Should I have wait longer before picking them up ? What is right to great ride of the green skin ? How could I crack them ?

Anyone else finding wild grapes?

Does anyone else primarily find muscadine by smell? I can easily notice it from 20 yards away.

Found me some Wood Hedgehog mushroom today.

Considered to be a good od edible, having a sweet nutty taste and crunchy texture. Some consider it the culinary equivalent to the chanterelle. There are no poisons look-alikes either 🙌

Further info about the mushroom: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/hydnum_repandum.html

This was an unusual tree I noticed in my neighborhood and it took me some time to identify. But when I did I was delighted to learn it is quite edible.

Processing the seeds was a bit of a chore and I only ended up with a small handful for my trouble but it was still a fun experiment.

They are sweet and starchy, like a small chestnut. Tasty and if they were bigger they would be quite worth the effort.

So, test your ID skills: can anyone figure out what tree these are from? Hint: it’s a food I doubt many English speakers have ever tried, though it should look a little familiar…

Stumbled across this one recently, as the link and image suggests this is a fully 3D printable berry picker! Thought about buying one, but this one is rather convincing due to its features.
Link to print! https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/tool/mobile-berry-harvester-3d-print-forest-garden-berry-picker

Found some serviceberries up in the mountains of Utah last August, and used them to make a delicious cobbler!

I posted this back then, but the post got deleted when the other community mysteriously dissappeared.

Here's some more pics!

Not 100% sure what the name of this bugger is, but a cool one for sure!