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mushrooms

    FORAGING

    The Many Happy Returns of the Mushroom Hunters

    Foragers keep old traditions and create new ones here

    By

    The Red Ones and the Brown Ones

    My friends Vida Rimkuviene and Daneta Kerikas from Boston finally took me with them on their annual mushroom hunt. I’ve never foraged mushrooms on my own because, like so many Americans, while I love fungi, the idea of picking wild ones fills me with the dread of organ failure.

    Writer Edouard Fontenot with a basket of the boletes his Lithuanian friends call “the red ones.” (Photo by Vida Rimkuviene)

    But Vida and Daneta are originally from Lithuania, and they’ve been picking mushrooms in the forest there all their lives. They’ve also been coming to the Cape, camping and foraging near Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro, for 20 years. They pick only the two kinds of mushrooms they are absolutely sure are safe, though there are other edible types in our woods.

    Ever practical, they call the mushrooms “the red ones” and “the brown ones” — they are cousins in the Boletaceae family. The question that really matters, though: “Is it a good one?” asks Vida. “Yes!” gushes Daneta. “It’s a perfect one.” And then they photograph it from all angles before gently plucking it from the ground, more pet than plant. —Edouard Fontenot

    Matthew DeNittis picks a prized matsutake mushroom. (Photo courtesy Matthew DeNittis)

    From Russia With Mushroom Love

    I always run into foragers in Truro at this time of year. Matthew DeNettis comes from Sutton to forage for city chefs. He gets especially excited about finding the prized matsutakes. But most come from countries where there’s a tradition of mushroom gathering.

    Photographer Nancy Bloom met Boris Kelner on a walk in Truro, where he showed off a bolete, the orange-red-capped Leccinum aurantiacum. Boris and his wife, Violetta, come from New York every year to pick mushrooms. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    I met Boris Kelner and his wife, Violetta, in the woods of Truro last week. The pair come from Bridgehampton on Long Island and stay in the same cottage in Eastham every year when they come to forage in pine-covered, sandy spots here — “our beloved forest!” They’re originally from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and Boris told me he learned to pick mushrooms from his father, who always said, “If you don’t know whether it’s edible or not, don’t put it in your basket!”

    A basket of Lactarius volemus, foraged by the Kelners last week on their 30th annual visit to the Outer Cape. They will be soaked and brined for keeping. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    Their baskets looked full of treasures, and Boris and Violetta were happy with their harvest. But, Boris said, this year’s drought did seem to mean fewer mushrooms on the landscape. —Nancy Bloom

    RESILIENCE

    It’s Good to Garden Now

    Local suppliers are finding new ways to make sheltering better for us all

    By

    TRURO — For the people who grow vegetables and manicure lawns, it’s definitely not a garden variety spring, as the coronavirus closes retail garden centers and seed catalogs are selling out.

    KITCHEN TABLE

    Mushroom Bisque

    A rich winter soup, but one that’s made without cream

    By

    It seems like nobody suggests dinner at our place these days. But I’ve got a great mushroom bisque from the old days that is definitely company-worthy. It came originally from Front Street, and it’s one of those recipes that is not a secret: I got it from a friend in the 1980s, and later it made its way into Gillian Drake’s cookbook, A Taste of Provincetown, published in 1991. It is a recipe to be remembered and brought out at this time of year because, although it seems rich, it’s actually light — made without any cream. The original recipe calls for black trumpet mushrooms, but I’ve used everything from rehydrated dried boletes to a mix of portabellos, shiitakes, and plain old white button mushrooms.

    Mushroom Bisque
    An old-school bisque, but lighter, made by blending well-seasoned mushrooms with good broth.

    Mushroom Bisque

    serves 4 people

     2 lbs. mixed mushrooms

    1/2 cup butter

    1/2 cup medium-dry sherry

    1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

    about 4 cups chicken broth

    salt to taste

    In a soup pot, sauté the mushrooms in butter until they start to soften. Season them with salt and add the half cup of sherry. Cook off the alcohol for a minute or two, then add the pepper.

    When the mushrooms are soft and dark, take them off the stove and blend them with the chicken broth — you want about equal amounts of sautéed mushrooms and chicken broth, so the texture is creamy without being too thick.

    Serve with a dash of sherry in each bowl. A few thinly sliced mushrooms, lightly browned, and a sprig of thyme makes a nice garnish.

    Do your friends keep suggesting dinner at your place? If you’re that kind of cook, maybe you ought to invite the rest of us to your table. Send a favorite recipe. If it’s made with ingredients that are in season here, all the better. Something not too complicated, something with a story to it. Send it to [email protected].

    kitchen table

    Boletes Ask for Butter

    Layer them over pan-grilled bread for a well-foraged meal

    By

    After a day of collecting, a few boletes will go home to a buttery pan. (Photo Sophie Ruehr)

    It’s been a good fall for mushrooms, with plenty of rain followed by some warm, sunny days. I’ve been out in the woods looking for boletes — being careful not to trample the pine needle duff in their favorite settings as I go.

    There are lots of different boletes out there. They like woods like ours, where the understory is fairly open, the ground is sandy, and the trees are mixed oaks and pines. I’m after the Boletus edulis, which you might know by their Italian name, porcini. They’re beloved in Europe and though I don’t know what they’re called in Russian, I know Russians come here from as far away as Boston to pick them.

    Boletes have a meaty texture and rich flavor. The best-tasting ones are golden brown, the color of a particularly vivid fallen oak leaf, or maybe a well-baked biscuit. My friend Richard, who first showed them to me, says they look like just toasted hamburger buns from above, and I think he’s right. The undersides are spongy — no gills! — and either white or yellow.

    Richard taught me to cut them from the bottom of the stem and then cover the area with dirt and leaf litter so that any exposed mycelia — the tiny root systems important to both mushrooms and forests — don’t dry out.

    Some foragers pickle their haul in vinegar. I’ve filed pickling into the “good for you, not for me” kitchen tip category, and while I aspire to pulling out my dehydrator and lining it with thinly sliced boletes, I keep eating what I bring home before that happens.

    The thing is that boletes are just asking for a frying pan and butter. Garlic, too, and maybe a bit of onion or a leek. A pinch of salt, and a slice of bread grilled in oil, and you have yourself a well-foraged meal.

    PAN-FRIED BOLETES

    This recipe came to me originally from Richard Bailey, an enthusiastic Wellfleet mushroom forager. He says boletes should be used very soon after harvesting and be handled carefully.

    If you cut the bolete in half, just the way you might cut a sandwich in half, you’ll see that the mushroom is made of two distinct layers — the firm upper layer and the spongy under layer. If the boletes you’ve picked are not very young and fresh or are getting slightly past their prime, you can peel off the spongy under layer and cook only the firm top layer. Please note: you do not have to do this — there’s nothing dangerous about the under layer — but it’s the part that can add a somewhat slimy texture as the mushroom ages.

    1/4 pound boletes, sliced thin
    3 tablespoons butter
    1 medium yellow or white onion, diced
    3 cloves garlic, minced
    salt to taste
    optional: plain pasta or toast, as a vehicle

    Slice your boletes gently, as they bruise easily. Set them aside while you melt the butter over medium heat in a large skillet. When the pan is hot, add the onions and sauté for 5-8 minutes, or until they are soft and translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute or so. Then add the boletes — try to arrange them in a single layer across the bottom of the skillet. Cook for about 10 minutes without flipping or stirring — or until they release their juices and begin to get dry. Then flip them and do the same on the other side. Serve hot, tossed over pasta or layered onto a piece of toast.

    in the wild

    Not All Fungi Foragers Are Good Environmental Stewards

    Overcollecting and trampling disturb a delicate symbiosis

    By

    mushroom in the Wellfleet woods
    Careful mushroom foragers known not to disturb the “duff” that creates good conditions for fungi. (Photo Sophie Ruehr)

    The Outer Cape’s sandy, acidic soils are generally seen as inhospitable for food crops. But every fall, people travel from across New England and farther afield to visit our dunes and pine forests, looking for the special mushrooms that thrive in nutrient-poor soils and in symbiotic relationships with pines and oaks.

    The number of mushroom foragers has increased in recent years, said Bill Yule of Haddam, Conn., who was picking mushrooms at Wellfleet’s Great Island in the Cape Cod National Seashore last week. Yule drove here expressly to forage, as he has done for many years.

    No one the Independent interviewed for this story would admit to selling foraged mushrooms from the Outer Cape to fancy restaurants in the city. One Russian collector at Great Island told a reporter that there were “no mushrooms today” as she filled the trunk of her car with fungi.

    Bill Yule knows his king boletes from the bogus ones, but he worries about overcollection. (Photo Sophie Ruehr)

    Yule said that not all foragers are respectful environmental stewards. “Some people come out and grab everything they see,” he said. “Some people rake the pine duff, looking for matsutake buttons to sell in Boston. It’s not huge, but it gets bigger every year.”

    Matsutake and porcini, also known as boletes, are both tasty mushrooms that grow in piney woods across the Cape. They can command high prices, $40 to $50 per pound and sometimes higher.

    Liam Luttrell Rowland, the chef at Spindler’s in Provincetown, said this week that, on rare occasions, he buys local matsutake harvested by trusted foragers.

    “I don’t like the idea of someone coming to the Cape and making a bunch of money harvesting mushrooms,” Luttrell Rowland added. Safety and legality are his top priorities, he said.

    Mushroom fever breaks the rules

    Within the boundaries of the National Seashore an individual is allowed to pick up to five gallons of mushrooms per day for home use. Digging in or disturbing the soil while collecting, however, is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, collecting mushrooms for sale is “completely illegal,” said Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom. “It’s for personal consumption only.”

    Carlstrom said that citations have been issued for overcollection in the past. Although the Seashore is not actively monitoring mushroom foragers, “Our rangers are looking for anything that might seem excessive,” he said.

    Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary has also experienced some illicit collecting.

    Director Melissa Lowe Cestaro said that people often forage in the sanctuary despite its strict

    no-collection policy. “We require people to stay on trails,” she said, “and foraging takes you off-trail and sometimes into sensitive conservation areas.”

    Cestaro said that illicit foraging has been a problem each fall in her 25 years at Audubon. Mushroom hunters often sneak into the sanctuary from West Road, parking their cars a few feet away from the signs prohibiting collection.

    From the large quantity of their hauls, Cestaro infers that foragers might be selling their mushrooms. “Sometimes I see people with a carload of mushrooms,” she said. “It’s not like you can eat a truckload in a day.”

    It’s a sport for the Russians

    Lucy Lins of North Falmouth was the disappointed forager at Great Island last week whose car trunk contained several boxes of boletes, of which porcini are a subgroup.

    Lins is Russian, and she said that mushroom foraging is the Russian equivalent of recreational fishing. “It’s a sport — something you do just for fun,” she said. “You spend time outside and walk around.” Lins claimed that she would enjoy foraging even if no tasty mushrooms could be found.

    Ilya Bernstein of New York grew up in the former U.S.S.R. and has spent several autumns in Truro. He explained that collecting mushrooms is a popular weekend activity in Russia.

    “Russian peasants, traditionally, have had very little food of their own,” Bernstein said. “For long stretches of history, they ate mushrooms.” In the 1960s it became fashionable among city dwellers to spend a day foraging in the countryside, he said.

    Russian foragers look specifically for boletes, Bernstein said. He doubted that anyone was selling them, though. “They’re very beautiful,” he said. “But [boletes] look better than they taste.”

    Foraging on the Cape has a reputation among the Russian foragers.

    “There’s a story that Russians tell — a mushroom horror story,” Bernstein said. “One day, someone went and gathered several bags of mushrooms. They were stopped by a ranger in the parking lot and forced to dump them all out” — a complete waste of perfectly good fungi. “From the perspective of a mushroom picker, it’s a complete outrage,” said Bernstein.

    Guarding mushroom knowledge and ecosystems

    Overcollecting and trampling of forest vegetation could have long-term effects on Cape Cod’s ecosystems, and mycologists worry that if word gets out about the valuable species growing here, the situation will only get worse.

    Wesley Price, head of the Cape Cod Mycological Society, said that foraging has increased in recent years. “The awareness of what we have is growing,” Price said. “Caring for that resource is not always foremost in people’s mind when they’re foraging.”

    Although there’s little research on how much harvesting is too much, overcollecting could result in fewer fungi. If mushrooms are collected before they have a chance to drop their spores and reproduce, “it could impact the overall health of the species and genetic diversity,” Price said.

    Bill Neill, a mycologist and co-author of Cape Cod Mushrooms, said that the increasing number of foragers in the woods is changing the landscape. “It’s not like people go from point A to point B,” said Neill. “It’s all cow trails, meandering though the pines. Certain places just get so trampled. It must be taking its toll.”

    Fungi play important roles in the ecosystems of Cape Cod. Many fungi live below ground, where we can’t see them, and their mycelia — tiny, spindly roots — are microscopic. In one square foot of soil, there are miles of mycelial threads, which connect to surrounding trees to exchange nutrients and water.

    Without these symbiotic relationships between fungi and trees, “There would be a lot less forest than there is now,” Neill said. “Out in the wind, it’s a very hostile environment, and fungi are a big reason why the forests can survive.”

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