Virginia’s forests are alive with hidden treasures—and they taste delicious. From morels to chicken-of-the-woods, Virginia is a forager’s dream.
Dive into the fascinating world of mushroom foraging with Gabrielle Cerberville, better known online as the “Chaotic Forager.” Gabrielle is a foraging educator, community mycologist, and the author of her debut book, “Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal Life.”
You’ll learn where and when to find wild mushrooms in Virginia, how to get started safely, the rules and ethics of foraging on public lands, and why sustainability and ecological awareness matter for every forager.
Gabrielle guides us through Virginia's seasonal bounty, from fall's magnificent hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and giant puffballs, to winter's resilient oyster mushrooms, spring's elusive morels, and summer's golden chanterelles that carpet the forest floor.
Ready to explore Virginia's wild foods? Grab your basket, a mushroom foraging knife, and your appetite for connecting with the landscape. Let’s Go!
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Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal Life (Preorder the Book from your local bookseller)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jessica Bowser (00:00):
Gabrielle, welcome to Virginia outdoor
(00:02):
adventures. Thank you so muchfor having me. I'm so excited.
What do you love aboutVirginia's outdoors Appalachian
Unknown (00:09):
ecosystems are just so extremely biodiverse. There are
so many things that exist inVirginia at large, but you get
so many different things withVirginia, not even just
Appalachian ecosystems, but likeyou get the coast, you get
everything I love as a forager,that I can just like, go up the
mountain if I miss a season downin the valley, that, like, you
(00:31):
can travel 10 minutes in anydirection, and you're somewhere
completely different, and youhave lived
Jessica Bowser (00:35):
in many other states. So to hear that you
appreciate that about Virginia.
I love that, because thelandscape here has a little bit
of everything, and I love tohear that somebody who hasn't
experienced that everywhereappreciates it here.
Unknown (00:48):
I really do. Yeah, I lived in Indiana for a long
time, and Indiana is beautiful,but it is pretty flat, and being
able to come back to East Coastand experience mountains and
just diversity of landscapeagain, and diversity of terrain
is so it's so nice, it's cominghome.
Jessica Bowser (01:08):
Now, you're originally from Pennsylvania,
right? Yes. And how did youfirst get started with mushroom
foraging, like, What drew you towild foods in general? Those are
Unknown (01:17):
actually kind of two different answers. So when it
comes to wild foods in general,I grew up right in front of a
swamp. I lived in the mountains.
My my family is still in thePocono Mountains out in
Pennsylvania, and because welived in a swamp with all of
this acidic soil, we hadblueberries everywhere. So
blueberries were like my introinto wild food. And I'm 33 I
(01:39):
don't know if you remember whatblueberries tasted like when we
were kids. Like grocery storeblueberries. They were bad. They
were like so mealy. They didn'ttaste like anything. I thought
that I didn't like blueberries,and then I tasted a wild
blueberry, and I think that setme up to assume that wild food
tastes better than grocery storefood, and most of the time, that
(02:01):
is true. But when it comes tomushrooms, I didn't get into
mushrooms until I was about 25years old, when I was living in
Indiana. Actually, I found amushroom when I was out on a
trail run and just got reallycurious about what it was. I'd
never really thought that muchabout mushrooms before then, but
the whole process of identifyingit really just started me out on
this mushroom journey, and youknow, since then, it's just
(02:26):
become an obsession.
Jessica Bowser (02:29):
I think that's kind of how it starts for all of
us, is we see something andwe're like, that looks really
cool, or that's really strange,or what is that? And then we
sort of get sucked in, right?
Like we start to do a little bitof research, we find some
groups, maybe, of people, whoare identifying mushrooms or
sharing their love formushrooms, and then all of a
sudden, it opens you up to thiswhole new world, right? You have
(02:49):
to put
Unknown (02:51):
yourself in that place where you're a little bit of a
kid again, and you ask aquestion because you don't know
the answer to something. Youhave to accept the fact that you
don't know the answer and livein the curiosity for a little
while. It's something kids arereally good at and that adults
are not as good at. So it'ssomething I have to retrain my
brain to do really often. Like,hey, without ego, I don't know
(03:12):
this I don't know this organism.
I haven't introduced myself tothis friend yet. Let's learn
something. And that's like, thebest thing about the forest, you
get to go out and you get tolearn something every single
time, right?
Jessica Bowser (03:24):
And I love that you refer to them as friends,
because I typically do that whenI'm looking at birds or if I
come across other wildlife, likemaybe a snake or a salamander or
frog, but you refer toeverything as a friend, like the
plants, the trees, themushrooms, all the things, yeah.
Unknown (03:41):
I mean, that's how I see them. You know, they're,
they're beings, even though theydon't experience the world in
the same way that a human does,like there is, there is
personhood there, right?
Jessica Bowser (03:50):
I agree with that. And I think when you shift
your mind to start to thinkabout the outdoors in that way,
it creates a whole new meaning,like you're not just somebody
passing through anymore, butyou're you're part of a
community in a different way.
Yeah, absolutely. So you go bychaotic forager on your popular
social media accounts. I'mcurious what the story is behind
(04:10):
the name.
Unknown (04:13):
So what's funny is, when I started my Tiktok
account, which my friend kind ofbullied me into joining because
she kept sending me videos, andI couldn't watch them because I
wasn't on Tiktok. So she reallyjust wanted to spam me with
content. And was just like, Getit. Get an account. So I just
came up with a name. I have twocats, so I went with chaotic cat
lady, because I've always justgot, like, a million things
(04:35):
going on. I always have amillion hobbies. My office is
like a disaster of creativeexplosions. So I went with
chaotic cat lady, and then as Istarted actually making content,
I realized that I needed to havea username that more accurately
reflected the content I wasmaking. So I kept the chaotic
(04:59):
and switched the cat. Lady toforager.
Jessica Bowser (05:03):
I love it, and I should have known you were a cat
lady like, usually we canidentify each other pretty
Unknown (05:07):
quickly. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, there's, there's a
cat energy that people have,yeah, yeah.
Jessica Bowser (05:14):
It's a badass energy, if you ask me, I agree,
yeah, yeah, the attitude andeverything. I love it. So what
keeps you passionate aboutteaching others how to forage?
Because I would imagine, whenyou're when you open yourself up
on social media, you're alsoopening yourself up to all the
negativity and the crazy and thepeople who come out of the
woodwork saying all kinds ofthings. And I, you know, I don't
(05:37):
experience too much of that,luckily myself, but I see it
happening with others, and Ijust wonder, like, what makes
you decide to keep putting outeducational content amidst all
of that negativity, when you
Unknown (05:49):
choose to teach, what you're going to find is that it
makes you a better learner. Soone of the most effective ways
to learn something is to, like,try to find a way to teach it,
which feels really backwards.
It's something that I didn'treally understand until I got
into teaching in academia,because I work at UVA, and I
teach courses there, andsometimes you have to
internalize things differentlywhen you want to share them with
(06:12):
others. I kind of feel like Ihave the best job in the world,
because my job is to info dumpabout my special interests to
people who actually want tolisten, but you're right. There
are people on the internet whoare not there to listen. They're
just there to be mean. They'rethere to be jerks. And I try to
take people at face value, but Ialso try to assume good intent
(06:33):
whenever I can. So if somebodysays something that feels a
little cruddy, I try to do mybest to find the opportunity to
educate within that. So ifsomebody says something about
like, my hair, because it'salways just like some some
physical feature that they'vechosen to focus on, or some way
(06:56):
that I say something, but thenlike also mentions the mushroom
that I'm talking about, I'mgoing to ignore what they said
about how I look, and I'm goingto instead focus on responding
to the question that might behiding inside the main comment,
because comments and like publicfacing things like that, are
(07:16):
going to be read by otherpeople. And so it's an
opportunity to not only educatethis person who may not be
responding in good faith, but toeducate people who are scrolling
through comments and trying toget more nuance get more
information. So yeah, I try tonot overly concern myself with
people who are clearly notacting in good faith, though,
Jessica Bowser (07:42):
and on the other end of the spectrum, I imagine
it's also an opportunity for youto build community in a positive
way. So we touched on this alittle bit. But how does
foraging cultivate relationshipswith the landscape, with nature,
and then, of course, withpeople?
Unknown (07:57):
Yeah, you have to be mindful when you forage. There
is no alternative. If you decideto just wantonly brazenly walk
through the woods and startgrabbing stuff without paying
attention to where you'rewalking, without paying
attention to how much is there,without regard for the other
animals that live in the forestthat need to eat, you are going
(08:21):
to find that you burn all yourbridges very quickly. If you
take everything, then nothing isthere to regrow, and when you
come back next year, there won'tbe anything. So foragers have to
think ahead. They have toconsider the needs of everybody
in that ecosystem so that aresource isn't depleted, and
more importantly, so that thatresource, so that organism can
(08:44):
thrive, so you can come backyear after year. And it's not
just that it replenishes itself,it's that there's more it's more
abundant. It's a stronger, morebountiful organism at that
point,
Jessica Bowser (08:56):
let's talk about foraging in Virginia by season.
So it's fall right now. I'm surepeople are wondering what type
of species they might find inthe woods in Virginia in the
fall. Do you want to give us alittle bit of insights? Fall is
my
Unknown (09:10):
favorite foraging season for mushrooms. One of my
absolute favorite mushrooms isthis big poly pour. A polypore
is just like a mushroom that hasa pore surface underneath. It
usually grows in shelves on deador dying wood or very near it.
One of my favorite polypores ishen of the woods, griful of
front OSA. They sometimes callit the sheep's head mushroom.
(09:32):
Common names vary depending onlike region and what people
usually eat in those regions. Sohen of the woods, it really does
look like a chicken that's allfluffed out over over a bunch of
eggs. It's really cute, and youfind it at the base of usually
really old oak trees. So it'sparasitic, but only mildly So,
and it'll just pop up in thesame spot year after year after
(09:54):
year. I've found the same hen inthe same location for like, five
years in a row, six. Seven yearsin a row, and they're really
beautiful and delicious. That'sa favorite. There's also the
giant puff ball, and other typesof puff balls too, which look
like big, big, like Alienvolleyballs in the middle of the
Jessica Bowser (10:12):
forest. Oh my gosh. I went the first time I
saw one, I thought it was asoccer ball somebody had left on
the side of the trail. Me too,actually, yeah. I mean, it was
just, I was like, Why is there asoccer ball up here on this
mountain? But then I was like,why do people do anything they
do? And I almost watched pastit, but then I went back, and I
was like, Wait, what is this? Imean, it was enormous.
Unknown (10:32):
They're huge, and they're actually quite good.
They kind of taste, they don'ttaste like much, but they take
on flavor really well. So youcan make, like, puffball pizza,
actually is one of the recipesin my book, and it's a recipe
that I've posted online manytimes. You can use it as, like a
big pizza crust, because itholds its shape really well, and
it's just kind of a really goodsource of, like, protein and
(10:56):
texture, yeah. So, so that's agood one. There's also like
honey mushrooms, which wereactually the first mushroom that
I ever found. We have multiplekinds here in Virginia. There's
the ringless honey mushroom, desArmillaria case pitosa, that is
one of my favorites. And honeymushrooms also grow in big
clumps on the ground, but theyhave gills underneath, which
(11:17):
look like a little fan asopposed to pores on your skin,
they are heavily parasitic, soyou'll find them in forests. If
you look for a lot of deadtrees, and you come back in the
fall, that's where you're goingto find a lot of honey
mushrooms. They will kill trees,and they're actually very
ecologically important. We needthings to die in order to, like,
create good soil and to make wayfor new growth. But honey
(11:41):
mushrooms are also reallydelicious. So they're not as
beginner friendly. You do needto, you need to kind of know
what you're looking for, butthey are one of my favorite fall
mushrooms. They are so
Jessica Bowser (11:52):
good I'm hoping to find some this year, because
I have not yet foraged honeymushrooms, but I see other
people finding them right now.
So this must be the right time,because there's photos all over
the socials. Yeah? Finding honeymushrooms
Unknown (12:06):
when it's like comfortable to be outside again,
you know when the summer weatherhas really kind of gone away for
good, that's when I startfinding them. One good idea. Tip
is that the stems are reallyfibrous. When you when you pull
them apart, they kind of likehold together, almost like
string cheese, yes. But then thebottom of the stem, if you pull
it out, is going to be a littlebit pointed, and it's usually
(12:29):
black. The other cool thingabout honey mushrooms is that
they have bioluminescentmycelium.
Jessica Bowser (12:36):
I did not know that. It tells me what that
means.
Unknown (12:39):
So bioluminescence is like a natural luminescence. So
if you go out in the woods atnight and you see something
that's kind of glowing, that'sbioluminescent. So you might
have seen like thebioluminescent reefs that have,
like the bioluminescent littlecritters that are swimming
around in them, and it's thatkind of like bluish glow. So we
(13:02):
actually have a number ofbioluminescent fungi that you
can find in the forests inVirginia, and so the mycelium,
so the underground structure ofhoney mushrooms, is
bioluminescent, so it glowsalmost like an acidic yellow
color.
Jessica Bowser (13:18):
So this is really cool, because I'm
thinking like, as you're tellingme this I'm thinking back to a
backpacking trip I did manyyears ago with a small group of
friends. It was in September, soit was around this time of year,
and we were all sitting aroundat nights, like after we put up
our tents, and it was dark out,and there was something glowing,
and all of us saw it, but it waslike, the kind of thing that you
like, you don't want to sayanything, because you're like,
(13:39):
Oh, it's just trash, or it'sjust, like, just my eyes, or I'm
imagining it, or whatever, allof us saw it. It took forever
before somebody was finallylike, is there something glowing
over there? And then all of uswere like, yeah, what is that?
And we all walked over andturned on our flashlights, and
it was mushrooms. And none of uscould believe it. It was
Unknown (13:57):
really cool. Were they like, little mushrooms growing
on Deadwood.
Jessica Bowser (14:02):
So, you know, I'm gonna go back and check my
photos, and I hope I took apicture of it. This was like 10
years ago, Gabrielle, so I couldnot tell you what they looked
like, but I hope I have picturesof it,
Unknown (14:13):
because i I'm willing to bet real money based on the
fact that it was September andthat you were able to see it,
that it was probably a mushroomcalled Pinellas stypticus, which
is sometimes called the bitteroysterling. And they almost look
like tiny, little oystermushrooms. They're a little
fuzzy on top, and they glow sobright in the dark, if you get
(14:38):
the conditions right, if it'slike rained enough recently, and
they're young enough and it'sdark enough outside. You know, I
have been some places where youcould, you could, like, hold
some up, and you could lightyour way home. If you're
Jessica Bowser (14:50):
kidding, that's amazing. Yeah, I Gosh. Now I
really do hope that I I'm gonnabe so disappointed if I don't
have pictures like, I need toknow this now. But, yeah, what?
It was close, but it wasn't thatclose. It was probably still
like 20 feet away. So it wasn'tlike it was right next to us,
like it was a little distanceinto the forest, yeah, oh my
gosh, so cool. And then, youknow, as you're talking about
(15:11):
some of these other species, doyou ever have the experience
where you, like, find somethingand you don't know what it is,
so you leave it, and then yourealize later on what it was,
and you kick yourself like thathuge puff ball that I found that
I thought was a soccer ball onthe side of the trail. There
were three of them, and I leftthem there because I had no idea
what they were. And I went backevery year for a couple years
after that, looking for it. Inever found it again. And I've
(15:33):
never found giant puff ballssince then. And now I'm just
like, I can't believe I didthat. I can't believe I left it
there.
Unknown (15:41):
I think that I've had experiences that are similar to
that, especially like early onin my foraging journey. Now, at
this point, there are timeswhere I can't key something out
in the forest, you know, I don'thave the right information with
me, or maybe I've foundsomething that just hasn't been
described, and then I figure itout later. But I think now, if I
(16:05):
couldn't identify it in theforest, I probably shouldn't
have brought it back with me toeat in the first place. So I
usually recommend that beginnersand really everybody, because
everybody is susceptible togoofing up. We are humans who
very often succumb to DunningKruger, you know, believing that
(16:28):
the little bit of informationthat we have covers more than
than it really does. You know, Iwill tell beginners like, you
know, the most dangerousposition to be in is not knowing
nothing. It's knowing 10 things,because you're going to think
that every thing that you seeoutside is one of those 10
things that you know, instead ofassuming that it's information
(16:53):
you don't have with beginnersand everybody else, I usually
encourage people to try toidentify something positively
three times before you eat it.
My friend Sam Thayer calls itbanana confidence, being as
confident of the thing thatyou're foraging as you would be
like identifying a banana. Weall know what bananas look like,
right? And there's like a littlevariation. You might get a
(17:14):
little confused between, like abanana and a plantain, for
example, but, but like we know,and we can kind of see the
differences. And if you're notconfident enough to be able to
say yes, like, I know thisintimately. I know exactly what
this is, or I can positivelyidentify it, you probably
shouldn't be eating it.
Jessica Bowser (17:35):
I believe that that's true, because now, when I
see something, I know forcertain that it is what I think
it is. And if I'm not sure, Idon't take it, because I, you
know, it's just not worth therisk. Exactly. Yeah, I'll take
lots of pictures, and then I'llpost them in groups and say,
Hey, I think this might be this,but I'm not sure. What do you
all think? And then start to getsome feedback. And then, of
(17:55):
course, check my field guides.
But otherwise, I just leave itwhere it is, because the other
thing, I think is, what if Itake it and it's not something
that's edible, then I've justtaken it from the forest for no
reason now, it's got to betossed out,
Unknown (18:09):
yeah, and it can't like, it is important to, like,
handle the things that you findright. Like, you can touch any
mushroom you want. And touchingand smelling and like observing
mushrooms is really important.
Sometimes. I think that inmodern society, we kind of
expect immediacy witheverything. So we expect to be
(18:30):
able to snap a picture and knowwhat something is, upload it to
some kind of an AI that's goingto do all the work for us. But
identification is work. You haveto actually sit down and do it.
You have to look at thingspretty objectively. I can't tell
you the number of times that Ihave, like, found something and
hoped desperately that it was,you know, the mushroom or the
(18:52):
berry that I was looking for.
Actually, just the other day Iwas like, checking out this,
this tree that looked reallyunfamiliar to me, and it had all
of these gorgeous orange berrieson it. And I was like, this
could be sea buckthorn, but Idon't know if it is. I hope it's
sea buckthorn, but I'm not goingto, like, just pick a bunch and
(19:13):
then try to figure it out.
Instead, I, like, looked up allof the identifying features, and
it was not see buckthorn. It wasa fire Bush, but they look
similar enough from a distance,but I got really excited. But
like, if I hadn't taken thattime and had instead just gone
like, oh, it's an orange berrygrowing on a bush. It's gotta be
this. It's gotta be this, Iwould have definitely ended up
(19:35):
with an upset stomach.
Jessica Bowser (19:38):
Luckily, that's all
Unknown (19:40):
right, yeah, something worse, yeah. So no matter where
you are, you have to take thetime. You can't just rely on
your gut, because your gut willlie to you. Your gut really just
wants snacks. I know mine does,and you can't trust it. I.
Jessica Bowser (20:40):
Foreign. Any other species for fall, or
should we move on to winter?
Unknown (20:53):
Another one that's, I think, really an easy ID for
fall is the Lion's Manemushroom. And this one also
bleeds into winter. So Lion'sMane mushrooms also represent a
different sort of morphology, orlike mushroom shape, and they
have what are called teeth. Sothey're these really long tubes
that kind of look like the maneof a lion. So they're these
(21:14):
white, sometimes yellowish,mushrooms that grow on trees. I
often find them on Silver Maplebut you can find them on other
types of trees as well. Andbecause they like to taunt us,
they like to grow really high upin trees, you'll sometimes fall.
Find them on fallen logs too.
But they are really delicious.
They kind of taste like crab,yes, and you can cook them like
(21:36):
crabs. So I've made like crabcakes. I've made crab Rangoon
with with them, and they'reabsolutely delicious, so they
are probably starting to comeout right about now, and they're
pretty easy to identify. Therearen't really a lot of things
that look exactly like them.
There are other species that arein that that genus that like
(21:56):
little family of mushrooms, butthose are all edible too. So
that's a that's a really goodone to know.
Jessica Bowser (22:05):
Lion's Mane is, like, the mushroom that I'm
always looking for that I neverfind. Like, I found it one year
accidentally, and it was a huge,huge, like, I mean, it was
enormous. I don't think I'veever seen one that big. And
there were multiple, like, onone tree. And so I was so
excited. I was pulling out theknife in the bag, and I'm like,
(22:26):
super stoked. And my friend islooking at me like, What in the
world is wrong with you? And Ihave never found anything like
that again, like, I've maybefind really small ones, or I
found a halfway decent sized onewhen I was hiking in Ohio and
staying in a hotel, and therewas nothing I could do with it,
so I left it there, because I'mlike, Well, you know, I can't do
anything with this. And it'sjust, it's almost like, what do
(22:49):
we call it in birding, whenthere's a bird that you really,
really want to see, but italways evades you Nemesis bird,
like they, yeah, they call itlike your nemesis bird. And so I
feel like, lion's mane is mynemesis mushroom. If they're
Unknown (23:02):
incredible, oh my gosh, I love that. Yeah, it's true,
though. I and they, they grow inplaces where you're not
necessarily always looking solike most of the ones that I
find are really high up intrees.
Jessica Bowser (23:15):
Yes. And then I had a friend who found one in a
neighbor's yard, really high up,and she had to get a ladder, but
she knew she needed to askpermission, so she knocked on
the door. She could tellsomebody was home. Nobody
answered. She left a note thatperson called her back and asked
her what it was worth. Theywanted to charge her like $100
to be able to come back with theladder and go up and get the
mushroom out of the
Unknown (23:35):
tree. Oh my gosh, that's not cool, although you
should always ask permission ifyou want to collect something
from anybody's property.
Jessica Bowser (23:42):
That's exactly right. Okay, so we need to move
on. Let's talk about winter. Imean, are there mushrooms in
winter? Like, what can youreally find when it's cold
Unknown (23:50):
out there are mushrooms in winter? Mushroom season never
really ends. There's alwayssomething to find. So a lot of
the mushrooms that grow inwinter are going to be things
like, what are your mushrooms?
Which are these kind of likejelly. They literally look like
ears. The genus is auricularia,and they're these kind of brown.
Sometimes you find them andthey're like a little crispy,
(24:10):
but you can find them andthey're kind of gelatinous. And
those are actually reallypopular in a lot of Asian
cuisine. So you'll find them insoups. Sometimes they're just
called ear fungus, which is sucha like, gross, yeah, when you
think about it, it's just like atranslation issue, I think. But
you'll often find them in soupsand stews and like a lot of a
(24:31):
lot of Chinese recipes, sothat's often how I'll use them.
You can also make candy withthem. So you can, like, boil
them in sugar water or juicewith added sugar, and then,
like, dry them out, and then ifyou roll them in a little bit of
malic acid, then you can makesour ear gummies, which is just
like, fun and weird.
Jessica Bowser (24:54):
I definitely need to get your recipe for
Whittier candy, because I keepfinding wood ear and I'm sure.
People have seen it all thetime, and they just don't even
know what it is, because it'llbe like on a stick, on the
ground, on the trail when youwalk over. I have tried
different things, and everysingle time, my husband's like,
I'm not eating snot, boogermushrooms, because that's what
he like the texture of it. Hecan't get over it. And
(25:17):
everything I try, I think it'sfine, but he he can't deal with
it, and he's always complaining.
So if I made candy out of it, Iwill bet he eats it. You can
Unknown (25:25):
get a lot of people to eat things that they would never
eat. If you say here, this iscandy. And I feel like, I feel
like this is gonna work. You'regonna have to report back and
tell me, but I feel like this ishow, this is how you get
Jessica Bowser (25:39):
him. I think that's right. Okay. What else
can we find in winter?
Unknown (25:43):
So another one of my favorite mushrooms is a mushroom
called the Blue it. It has likethree scientific names. It's
either calibia Nuta, clitas, benuda or lapista Nuta, but it is
this gorgeous purple mushroom.
You have to be kind of carefulwith purple mushrooms, because
some of them are going to be inthe genus courtinarius, and some
of those purple cortinarius canbe sickeners. Those are going to
(26:07):
have rusty red spores. So you'regoing to be able to see like
along the stem, usually they'llhave kind of a little, a little
rusty looking stain. So stayaway from those. But the wood
blue. It has almost like a lilacpurple color everywhere. And
they kind of smell a little bitlike freezer burned orange
(26:28):
juice, but they taste so goodwhen you cook them. Usually I
can smell them before I can seethem, and they'll grow in leaf
litter and in Pine Duff. So youkind of have to, you have to,
like, keep an eye out for littlelike lumps in the forest,
because sometimes they'reunderneath, but when you find
them, you usually find a lot,and they taste so good. And I've
found them all the way intoJanuary here.
Jessica Bowser (26:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna be crawling around looking for
some things now I see, like,your videos online, and you're
down on the ground, and you'relike, Yeah, I'll look for these
bumps. And then you lift someleaves, and there they are. And
I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. Ihave to try that.
Unknown (27:05):
Yeah, this is why I love taking kids on forays. They
always find things becausethey're low to the ground, so
they see more
Jessica Bowser (27:12):
that makes sense. Yeah? Anything else in
the winter?
Unknown (27:16):
Oyster mushrooms are another thing that is really
popular in winter, I find themall the way through winter, I
have found oyster mushrooms,like in winter, in February in
Michigan, frozen. They aredelicious. They're very easy to
identify. So they grow in theseshelves. So you'll see them kind
of in a big clump, and they havethis really interesting Gill
(27:37):
structure that helps you toidentify them. So the top of the
mushroom, it'll usually makelike kind of a pearlish color,
almost bluish, sometimes verylight gray or white. And then
you look underneath, and you'vegot all of these stems kind of
coming to the same point, andthe gills travel all the way
down the stem. It's a featurethat we call decurrent. So when
(27:59):
you hear that something that thegills are decurrent, it means
that they're traveling all theway down the stem too, all the
way to the point of attachment,and they are so just easy to
use. So if you're not a meateater, or you want to eat less
meat, oyster mushrooms are oneof the best things that you can
sub in for meat. I'm not usuallysomebody who's like batter and
fry it, but honestly, batter andfry some oyster mushrooms and
(28:23):
then serve it with like, alittle bit of, like, an aioli or
something so good, just likelight and lovely. One of the
best, like, chicken sandwichesI've ever had in my life was
made from fried oystermushrooms. It was so good. The
texture is incredible.
Jessica Bowser (28:40):
Yeah, I do enjoy the texture. And I make a mean
mushroom barley soup out ofoyster mushrooms. And, like, I'm
a big fan of soup in winter, andthis just sort of beefs it up,
because, like you said, it hasthe texture of meat. It's, you
know, it's hearty. And so youfeel like, between the mushroom
and the barley, that you'regetting a lot out of that soup.
(29:00):
And it's so good for you.
Absolutely. I love that. Yeah,and our oyster is usually pretty
prolific, because I feel like,when I find them, I'm not
finding a little bit, I'mfinding so many.
Unknown (29:10):
Yeah, so oysters are going to grow on dead wood or
dying wood, and they're usuallygoing to grow in big flushes,
just like big clusters, yeah,like I've seen, like, a large
tree fallen over, and it'll becovered in oyster mushrooms,
like, way more than I couldpossibly carry out. Oh yeah,
absolutely. Almost anytime Ifind oyster mushrooms, I end up
(29:31):
like, calling friends and beinglike, so how many can you keep
in your fridge? Like I have somany friends who now know that,
like, when they get a call fromme, the first thing out of my
mouth is going to be, what's thefridge situation right now?
Jessica Bowser (29:45):
Because you need space. I could completely
understand that, especially withoysters. Like, I think of all of
the mushrooms that I have storedright now, I think I have more
oyster mushrooms than anythingelse. Like I dehydrate them and
then I stick them in jars orcontainers. And I've got them. I
mean, I I've had some going backa couple of years because, oh
yeah, it's, you know, you've gotso many of them that you're
(30:07):
like, it's to the point nowwhere, when I find oysters, I
just leave them alone, becauseI'm like, I don't have space for
anymore.
Unknown (30:13):
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
And there's also an invasiveoyster. This isn't as much of a
problem in Virginia yet, butit's coming where we're going to
start seeing the golden oysters,Pleurotus citronopyliatus, which
have now been confirmed to be aninvasive mushroom. We know about
invasive plants and animals, butwe don't know as much about
invasive mushrooms, and it'sbecause we don't study mushrooms
as much, yeah, but, but it'scoming. It's already a huge
(30:36):
problem in the Midwest. Theyjust absolutely will, like,
wreck a tree and completely takeit over. And they're very
effective decomposers,
Jessica Bowser (30:47):
yeah, I had no idea that there were non native
invasive mushrooms. Yeah.
(31:38):
Let's talk about spring andsummer, because I think also a
lot of people are outside inthese seasons, and they want to
know what they can find.
Unknown (31:44):
Then absolutely so in spring, we've got our morels.
That's going to be the mostpopular spring, spring fungus.
They're really delicious. Theyonly appear for a few weeks. You
definitely get a lot of peopleout in the woods. They are hard
to spot. They are very pickyabout where they like to grow.
You really do have to go andlook hard for them. So it is a
(32:08):
lot of fun if you want to gohunting for morels and you don't
want as much of the frustrationof looking for morels. I would
definitely recommend joining oneof the morel hikes that's put on
by the Mycological Society. Soyou can go mushroom hunting with
people who like, know mushrooms,and are going to be able to,
(32:32):
like, demonstrate where to findthem and what to look for in the
spring. I also collect a lot ofpheasant back mushrooms
cereposcuamosis, and they'repretty easy to ID. They have
this like pheasant featherlooking top. Sometimes they're
also called Dryad saddle, andthey kind of smell like
watermelon rind. But they'rereally good if you shred them up
(32:53):
and use them like chickenbreast. And then moving on to
summer, we've got chanterellesgalore. We have so many
different kinds of chanterellesthat grow in Virginia, and they
grow for ages. Last year, I wasfinding chanterelles into
November, so I started findingthem in late May, and I didn't
stop finding them until like midNovember, so they were just
going on forever. Yeah, thissummer was a great chanterelle
(33:16):
year, my freeze dryer anddehydrator just everything was
going nuts all the time, nobreaks. And then we've also got,
like, chicken of the woods,which you and I actually found
we
Jessica Bowser (33:28):
did quite a few very nice ones. Yeah.
Unknown (33:31):
So there are a couple of different varieties that grow
here in Virginia. We have thewhite poured chicken of the
woods. So on top, it kind oflooks like a traffic cone. It's
like darker towards the base,and then it gets lighter towards
the edges, and then underneath,it's either going to be this
crazy sulfur yellow color, orit's going to be almost like a
cream, very pale color. And thisis another poly pour. So kind of
(33:55):
like our hen of the woods,you're going to find it growing
on dead or dying wood. Sometimesit grows in these big shelves.
Sometimes it grows in like,almost a rosette. But they're
also easy to identify, andthey're quite good. They really
have more the texture of chickenthan the flavor, but chicken
tastes like everything, right?
Like everything tastes likechicken. So yeah, I use chicken
of the woods in a lot ofdifferent things, and you can
(34:18):
find it in great quantity, justlike, just like oyster
mushrooms,
Jessica Bowser (34:24):
yes, oh my gosh.
This is the other mushroom thatI have so much of. I don't know
what to do with it all. There'slike, bags and bags of it in my
deep freezer and, and I think Iwas telling you when we were
when we were cutting the chickenof the woods that we found when
we were together, I was like, myhusband's gonna kill me. He's to
the point where he's like, donot bring home any more. He got
to the point where he was sosick of eating chicken the woods
(34:46):
because, and, you know, I wasmaking it in different recipes,
so I was switching it upconstantly. We weren't having
the exact same thing everysingle time. But he was like, I
can't do it anymore. I'm sorry.
I'm like, but it's so good andand also. I think that's the
difference between, like, goingout and finding it yourself and
like, just, you know, beinghanded something, or put having
(35:07):
something put down in front ofyou, or even just going to the
store and buying something, youdon't get the same excitement
and joy out of it as you do whenyou have found it yourself.
Unknown (35:15):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, I very much feel that way.
Like foraging really connectsyou to your food in a completely
different way. You feel moreresponsible for it. You're gonna
take better care of it. You'renot gonna just like, let it rot
in your fridge because it washard work to acquire it, so you
have to do something with it.
Jessica Bowser (35:36):
Yeah, I totally agree. Now, chanterelles are
completely different. Those arelike, gold on the forest floor.
And when I bring them home, Ialways saute them with with the
intention of using them in somesort of a recipe. But never
fails, my husband comes in, andhe starts picking them out of
the pan and popping them in hismouth. And then I get panicked
that he's going to eat them alland I won't get any so then I
(35:56):
start doing the same. And nextthing you know, the whole thing
is gone.
Unknown (35:59):
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I did really well
on trend trails this year, butmost years they're not getting
preserved. They're gettingannihilated. That's right,
they're gone.
Jessica Bowser (36:12):
So I'm glad that you mentioned that there are
walks that people can go on. Idefinitely need to join one of
the one of those morale walks,because in all the years that
I've been looking, I have neveronce found one, and I was joking
with you that I'm to the pointwhere I don't even want to pick
them. I just want to take apicture of it and take a selfie
next to one and be like, I foundone. But let's maybe shift a
(36:32):
little bit into what some of theresources are for beginners,
like local clubs, workshops,communities like, how would you
recommend learning more?
Unknown (36:42):
If you go to the NAMA website, North American
mycological Association,nama.org, you can find the
closest mushroom club orMycological Society to your
area. So you can search bystate. Here in Virginia, I think
(37:02):
we have two clubs, but our ourclub, where I live, is the Blue
Ridge mycological club brumsey,which is run by Pat Mitchell,
who's a great mycologist, and itis so valuable to get to go on
walks with people who have spenta large portion of their life
dedicated to mushrooms. Becausemushroom people love to teach.
(37:24):
We love to gab. So we will teachyou like what we are seeing. So
you can come along and you canhang out with us, and we will
spend time with you if you wantto do something that's more like
a more like a one off, shamelessplug I lead walks you can find.
You can find those online. Idon't have any scheduled for the
(37:44):
moment, but it's common. Andthere are other people in town
who lead walks too. So that'slike the best thing you can do
is to get out in the woods withsomebody and get that hands on
learning. But then there arealso other resources where you
can do more independentlearning. There are some really
great websites. There areFacebook groups you can join,
like your state's Facebookmushroom group, and you'll learn
(38:06):
a ton, because people will postwhat they find, and you'll get
to like learn by osmosis. That'shonestly how I did a lot of my
learning at first, there aresome great websites, like
mushroom expert.com the guy whowrites it is really funny, and
you'll be able to learn a lot ofthe characteristics of different
mushrooms. And if somebody givesyou an ID on one of those
groups, you can look it up, andyou can learn more about that
(38:29):
mushroom and what led them tothat ID. There are also books.
This is really weird to say, butthese days, you actually do have
to be careful of some books,because if you just go on Amazon
and you buy whatever book showsup first, there's a chance that
it could be aI generated. So tryto find a book that is for your
area, that is written by aperson that you can Google, that
(38:51):
talks about species that you canfind. So one of the books that I
really like is written byAppalachian forager, and it is a
really great resource for ediblemushrooms in this area. There's
also southeastern mushrooms,which is another really
fantastic book. There are somegreat books for this area
(39:12):
because it is so diverse. Peoplewant to study the mushrooms
here. They want to learn moreand and share that information.
Jessica Bowser (39:20):
Are there any other tools that people need to
get started?
Unknown (39:24):
The nice thing about foraging is like human beings
are equipped with most of thetools that they need to do it
just on their own bodies, but Ido recommend getting a knife. So
I used to forage with, like,literally, a paring knife from
my kitchen and a trash bagbecause I was poor, and nowadays
(39:44):
I use a mushroom knife, whichI'm a big fan of. They have kind
of curved blades, so they'renice for carving away dirt and
debris and and then there's abrush on the other end, so that
you can brush things away andyou can excavate. Or evict
unwanted critters who might behiding inside your mushrooms,
(40:04):
and then baskets or bags. So tryto get something that has has,
like an open weave so thatspores, which are kind of like
mushroom seeds that are insideof your mushrooms, can still
fall out, and you can kind ofreplant mushrooms as you were
walking, I'm personally more ofa basket fan than a bag fan,
because I don't like crushing mymushrooms, but use what you got.
Jessica Bowser (40:29):
I learned from you that baskets are really
nice. I don't have a basketthough, and I'm usually out.
That's because I'm usually doingsomething simultaneously. I'm
simultaneously hiking andbirding and identifying plants
and looking for mushrooms, likeI'm doing all the things at
once, right? So, you know, Ihave, like, those nice cloth, I
guess they're supposed to be,like farmers market bags or like
(40:52):
grocery store bags, but theircloth and they fold up into a
little pouch, and I toss them inmy pack, so that if I find
something, I've always got a bagthat's
Unknown (41:00):
totally pack. Yeah, that's totally fair. I've sort
of switched from using abackpack to using a basket for
everything. So I feel sort oflike a forest. Jane Birkin, you
know, because she said she usedto carry around a basket because
she couldn't fit all of herstuff in a handbag. And then was
it Hermes, I don't know anythingabout fashion, but he, like,
(41:21):
made her this, this special bag,the Birkin bag. And she was just
like, I still like my basket,though, and that's how I feel,
because, honestly, there is nopurse that could hold everything
I need. Like, give me a big oldmarket basket, and then no
matter what I'm out therelooking for, it's gonna be fine,
(41:42):
yes.
Jessica Bowser (41:43):
And the mushroom knife, Gabrielle, I'm telling
you, you changed my life. I'm soglad. The moment you handed that
knife to me and said, use this,I was like, Oh my gosh, where
has this been my whole life? Imean, I've been, I've been using
just a regular pocket knife, andit's not the same. Plus, yours
had a brush on the end of it,which was so smart, because you
(42:06):
said, why wait till you get hometo clean them, and have to do
all the work, and then the messis in your kitchen. You can do
it right here in the field, andoh my god, like I came home with
perfectly cleaned trimmed, likeready to go chicken of the
woods. I didn't have to do theextra work in my kitchen. And
sometimes the extra work is thatlittle thing that makes you
(42:26):
decide, I don't have time forthis now, or I'm not going to do
this now
Unknown (42:29):
totally, and it's more sustainable to do it out in the
woods. Because when you're like,trimming everything in your
kitchen, what are you going todo? You're just going to, like,
maybe throw it in your compost.
Maybe it goes in the trash.
Maybe it goes down the sink, andif you're doing it out in the
woods, like, I always kind offeel bad for the mushrooms, like
the the bugs that I evict frommy mushrooms, because I'm like,
(42:50):
I'm like, kind of taking yourfood here. Sorry, but if I'm
leaving all the trimmings, thenI can also leave the bugs in the
trimmings. So it's like, hey,consolation prize, you still get
your snacks. I'm just going totake this part,
Jessica Bowser (43:02):
yes, especially if, when you get home and you
open the bag and there's bugs inthe bottom of the bag,
Unknown (43:07):
uh huh, yeah, yeah. I carry them
Jessica Bowser (43:11):
outside, but and put them at back outside, but I
don't know if I'm releasing theminto a place that they're going
to be able to survive. I justYeah.
Unknown (43:19):
The thing is, like, if you put mushrooms into your
basket dirty, they're going toget everything in your basket
dirty, yeah, and that dirt isgoing to get, like, embedded in
your mushrooms. So I don't putthings in my basket unless
they're clean, trimmed, ready togo
Jessica Bowser (43:34):
totally it's the first thing I did when I got
home after we were together thatday, is buy one online, and it
showed up the next day, and Iwas dancing around my living
room. I got so excited. I was
Unknown (43:44):
so glad. Like, if I could change anybody's life in
one small way, I'm gonna ridethat high for a while.
Jessica Bowser (43:50):
Yes, and they're not super expensive, and they're
small, you throw them in yourpack. Like, I just don't know
why I didn't have one all along.
So if I had, if I had anyadvice, you're the expert here.
But if I had any advice, I'd belike, get yourself a mushroom
nut. You want
Unknown (44:04):
to if you want to forage mushrooms, it really does
make a difference. Yeah. Onething I will say is, like, when
it comes to buying stuff, trynot to buy things until you know
that you're going to actuallyuse them. So a lot of people
will get into foraging, andthey'll just be like, Oh my
gosh. And now I want to buy,like, six beautiful baskets, and
I want to get this whole knifeset, and I want to get a hoary
(44:27):
Hori, and I want to get trimmersand pruners and all of this
stuff. And you're like, Whoa.
This just turned intocapitalism. Maybe we should,
like, just see what we alreadyhave, see what we can make work
like, if you know that you'renot going to be really into
making, like, juices from yourberries, maybe you don't need a
steam juicer. Maybe, like, youjust need the things to do, the
(44:48):
stuff that you know you're goingto be into, and then you can add
on over time. If you're notgoing to be gathering a ton of
things, maybe you don't need adehydrator right off the bat.
Maybe you can. Just use thedashboard of your car for a
while, until you go, you knowwhat a dehydrator would be a
good purchase for
Jessica Bowser (45:05):
me. That makes total sense. I say the same
thing about outdoor gear all thetime, because people go down
those rabbit holes real quick.
And you it's just not necessary.
Like, you know, acquire thethings that you really think
you're going to use and investin those one piece at a time.
Yeah, going crazy from thebeginning, invest
Unknown (45:24):
in tools that are going to make your job easier, but you
have to know what that job isfirst. You have to know, like,
what are the things that I amspending a lot of time on? One
thing that I would definitelyrecommend if you're going to be
foraging a lot of mushrooms is asalad spinner. They are so
useful for cleaning mushrooms.
Jessica Bowser (45:40):
So put that in your book. I mean, you have a
whole list of things in yourbook that you recommend for
different different projects,different recipes, different
whatever you're planning to do,but the salad spinner one, you
said to me when we weretogether, do you know the salad
spinner trick?
Unknown (45:56):
It's life changing, especially for morels, because
they get so dirty. No matterwhat you do, you're gonna,
you're gonna find grit everytime, and the salad spinner just
dislodges the grit so well, I'ma huge fan. Mm.
Gabrielle, welcome to Virginia outdoor
(00:02):
adventures. Thank you so muchfor having me. I'm so excited.
What do you love aboutVirginia's outdoors Appalachian
Unknown (00:09):
ecosystems are just so extremely biodiverse. There are
so many things that exist inVirginia at large, but you get
so many different things withVirginia, not even just
Appalachian ecosystems, but likeyou get the coast, you get
everything I love as a forager,that I can just like, go up the
mountain if I miss a season downin the valley, that, like, you
(00:31):
can travel 10 minutes in anydirection, and you're somewhere
completely different, and youhave lived
Jessica Bowser (00:35):
in many other states. So to hear that you
appreciate that about Virginia.
I love that, because thelandscape here has a little bit
of everything, and I love tohear that somebody who hasn't
experienced that everywhereappreciates it here.
Unknown (00:48):
I really do. Yeah, I lived in Indiana for a long
time, and Indiana is beautiful,but it is pretty flat, and being
able to come back to East Coastand experience mountains and
just diversity of landscapeagain, and diversity of terrain
is so it's so nice, it's cominghome.
Jessica Bowser (01:08):
Now, you're originally from Pennsylvania,
right? Yes. And how did youfirst get started with mushroom
foraging, like, What drew you towild foods in general? Those are
Unknown (01:17):
actually kind of two different answers. So when it
comes to wild foods in general,I grew up right in front of a
swamp. I lived in the mountains.
My my family is still in thePocono Mountains out in
Pennsylvania, and because welived in a swamp with all of
this acidic soil, we hadblueberries everywhere. So
blueberries were like my introinto wild food. And I'm 33 I
(01:39):
don't know if you remember whatblueberries tasted like when we
were kids. Like grocery storeblueberries. They were bad. They
were like so mealy. They didn'ttaste like anything. I thought
that I didn't like blueberries,and then I tasted a wild
blueberry, and I think that setme up to assume that wild food
tastes better than grocery storefood, and most of the time, that
(02:01):
is true. But when it comes tomushrooms, I didn't get into
mushrooms until I was about 25years old, when I was living in
Indiana. Actually, I found amushroom when I was out on a
trail run and just got reallycurious about what it was. I'd
never really thought that muchabout mushrooms before then, but
the whole process of identifyingit really just started me out on
this mushroom journey, and youknow, since then, it's just
(02:26):
become an obsession.
Jessica Bowser (02:29):
I think that's kind of how it starts for all of
us, is we see something andwe're like, that looks really
cool, or that's really strange,or what is that? And then we
sort of get sucked in, right?
Like we start to do a little bitof research, we find some
groups, maybe, of people, whoare identifying mushrooms or
sharing their love formushrooms, and then all of a
sudden, it opens you up to thiswhole new world, right? You have
(02:49):
to put
Unknown (02:51):
yourself in that place where you're a little bit of a
kid again, and you ask aquestion because you don't know
the answer to something. Youhave to accept the fact that you
don't know the answer and livein the curiosity for a little
while. It's something kids arereally good at and that adults
are not as good at. So it'ssomething I have to retrain my
brain to do really often. Like,hey, without ego, I don't know
(03:12):
this I don't know this organism.
I haven't introduced myself tothis friend yet. Let's learn
something. And that's like, thebest thing about the forest, you
get to go out and you get tolearn something every single
time, right?
Jessica Bowser (03:24):
And I love that you refer to them as friends,
because I typically do that whenI'm looking at birds or if I
come across other wildlife, likemaybe a snake or a salamander or
frog, but you refer toeverything as a friend, like the
plants, the trees, themushrooms, all the things, yeah.
Unknown (03:41):
I mean, that's how I see them. You know, they're,
they're beings, even though theydon't experience the world in
the same way that a human does,like there is, there is
personhood there, right?
Jessica Bowser (03:50):
I agree with that. And I think when you shift
your mind to start to thinkabout the outdoors in that way,
it creates a whole new meaning,like you're not just somebody
passing through anymore, butyou're you're part of a
community in a different way.
Yeah, absolutely. So you go bychaotic forager on your popular
social media accounts. I'mcurious what the story is behind
(04:10):
the name.
Unknown (04:13):
So what's funny is, when I started my Tiktok
account, which my friend kind ofbullied me into joining because
she kept sending me videos, andI couldn't watch them because I
wasn't on Tiktok. So she reallyjust wanted to spam me with
content. And was just like, Getit. Get an account. So I just
came up with a name. I have twocats, so I went with chaotic cat
lady, because I've always justgot, like, a million things
(04:35):
going on. I always have amillion hobbies. My office is
like a disaster of creativeexplosions. So I went with
chaotic cat lady, and then as Istarted actually making content,
I realized that I needed to havea username that more accurately
reflected the content I wasmaking. So I kept the chaotic
(04:59):
and switched the cat. Lady toforager.
Jessica Bowser (05:03):
I love it, and I should have known you were a cat
lady like, usually we canidentify each other pretty
Unknown (05:07):
quickly. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, there's, there's a
cat energy that people have,yeah, yeah.
Jessica Bowser (05:14):
It's a badass energy, if you ask me, I agree,
yeah, yeah, the attitude andeverything. I love it. So what
keeps you passionate aboutteaching others how to forage?
Because I would imagine, whenyou're when you open yourself up
on social media, you're alsoopening yourself up to all the
negativity and the crazy and thepeople who come out of the
woodwork saying all kinds ofthings. And I, you know, I don't
(05:37):
experience too much of that,luckily myself, but I see it
happening with others, and Ijust wonder, like, what makes
you decide to keep putting outeducational content amidst all
of that negativity, when you
Unknown (05:49):
choose to teach, what you're going to find is that it
makes you a better learner. Soone of the most effective ways
to learn something is to, like,try to find a way to teach it,
which feels really backwards.
It's something that I didn'treally understand until I got
into teaching in academia,because I work at UVA, and I
teach courses there, andsometimes you have to
internalize things differentlywhen you want to share them with
(06:12):
others. I kind of feel like Ihave the best job in the world,
because my job is to info dumpabout my special interests to
people who actually want tolisten, but you're right. There
are people on the internet whoare not there to listen. They're
just there to be mean. They'rethere to be jerks. And I try to
take people at face value, but Ialso try to assume good intent
(06:33):
whenever I can. So if somebodysays something that feels a
little cruddy, I try to do mybest to find the opportunity to
educate within that. So ifsomebody says something about
like, my hair, because it'salways just like some some
physical feature that they'vechosen to focus on, or some way
(06:56):
that I say something, but thenlike also mentions the mushroom
that I'm talking about, I'mgoing to ignore what they said
about how I look, and I'm goingto instead focus on responding
to the question that might behiding inside the main comment,
because comments and like publicfacing things like that, are
(07:16):
going to be read by otherpeople. And so it's an
opportunity to not only educatethis person who may not be
responding in good faith, but toeducate people who are scrolling
through comments and trying toget more nuance get more
information. So yeah, I try tonot overly concern myself with
people who are clearly notacting in good faith, though,
Jessica Bowser (07:42):
and on the other end of the spectrum, I imagine
it's also an opportunity for youto build community in a positive
way. So we touched on this alittle bit. But how does
foraging cultivate relationshipswith the landscape, with nature,
and then, of course, withpeople?
Unknown (07:57):
Yeah, you have to be mindful when you forage. There
is no alternative. If you decideto just wantonly brazenly walk
through the woods and startgrabbing stuff without paying
attention to where you'rewalking, without paying
attention to how much is there,without regard for the other
animals that live in the forestthat need to eat, you are going
(08:21):
to find that you burn all yourbridges very quickly. If you
take everything, then nothing isthere to regrow, and when you
come back next year, there won'tbe anything. So foragers have to
think ahead. They have toconsider the needs of everybody
in that ecosystem so that aresource isn't depleted, and
more importantly, so that thatresource, so that organism can
(08:44):
thrive, so you can come backyear after year. And it's not
just that it replenishes itself,it's that there's more it's more
abundant. It's a stronger, morebountiful organism at that
point,
Jessica Bowser (08:56):
let's talk about foraging in Virginia by season.
So it's fall right now. I'm surepeople are wondering what type
of species they might find inthe woods in Virginia in the
fall. Do you want to give us alittle bit of insights? Fall is
my
Unknown (09:10):
favorite foraging season for mushrooms. One of my
absolute favorite mushrooms isthis big poly pour. A polypore
is just like a mushroom that hasa pore surface underneath. It
usually grows in shelves on deador dying wood or very near it.
One of my favorite polypores ishen of the woods, griful of
front OSA. They sometimes callit the sheep's head mushroom.
(09:32):
Common names vary depending onlike region and what people
usually eat in those regions. Sohen of the woods, it really does
look like a chicken that's allfluffed out over over a bunch of
eggs. It's really cute, and youfind it at the base of usually
really old oak trees. So it'sparasitic, but only mildly So,
and it'll just pop up in thesame spot year after year after
(09:54):
year. I've found the same hen inthe same location for like, five
years in a row, six. Seven yearsin a row, and they're really
beautiful and delicious. That'sa favorite. There's also the
giant puff ball, and other typesof puff balls too, which look
like big, big, like Alienvolleyballs in the middle of the
Jessica Bowser (10:12):
forest. Oh my gosh. I went the first time I
saw one, I thought it was asoccer ball somebody had left on
the side of the trail. Me too,actually, yeah. I mean, it was
just, I was like, Why is there asoccer ball up here on this
mountain? But then I was like,why do people do anything they
do? And I almost watched pastit, but then I went back, and I
was like, Wait, what is this? Imean, it was enormous.
Unknown (10:32):
They're huge, and they're actually quite good.
They kind of taste, they don'ttaste like much, but they take
on flavor really well. So youcan make, like, puffball pizza,
actually is one of the recipesin my book, and it's a recipe
that I've posted online manytimes. You can use it as, like a
big pizza crust, because itholds its shape really well, and
it's just kind of a really goodsource of, like, protein and
(10:56):
texture, yeah. So, so that's agood one. There's also like
honey mushrooms, which wereactually the first mushroom that
I ever found. We have multiplekinds here in Virginia. There's
the ringless honey mushroom, desArmillaria case pitosa, that is
one of my favorites. And honeymushrooms also grow in big
clumps on the ground, but theyhave gills underneath, which
(11:17):
look like a little fan asopposed to pores on your skin,
they are heavily parasitic, soyou'll find them in forests. If
you look for a lot of deadtrees, and you come back in the
fall, that's where you're goingto find a lot of honey
mushrooms. They will kill trees,and they're actually very
ecologically important. We needthings to die in order to, like,
create good soil and to make wayfor new growth. But honey
(11:41):
mushrooms are also reallydelicious. So they're not as
beginner friendly. You do needto, you need to kind of know
what you're looking for, butthey are one of my favorite fall
mushrooms. They are so
Jessica Bowser (11:52):
good I'm hoping to find some this year, because
I have not yet foraged honeymushrooms, but I see other
people finding them right now.
So this must be the right time,because there's photos all over
the socials. Yeah? Finding honeymushrooms
Unknown (12:06):
when it's like comfortable to be outside again,
you know when the summer weatherhas really kind of gone away for
good, that's when I startfinding them. One good idea. Tip
is that the stems are reallyfibrous. When you when you pull
them apart, they kind of likehold together, almost like
string cheese, yes. But then thebottom of the stem, if you pull
it out, is going to be a littlebit pointed, and it's usually
(12:29):
black. The other cool thingabout honey mushrooms is that
they have bioluminescentmycelium.
Jessica Bowser (12:36):
I did not know that. It tells me what that
means.
Unknown (12:39):
So bioluminescence is like a natural luminescence. So
if you go out in the woods atnight and you see something
that's kind of glowing, that'sbioluminescent. So you might
have seen like thebioluminescent reefs that have,
like the bioluminescent littlecritters that are swimming
around in them, and it's thatkind of like bluish glow. So we
(13:02):
actually have a number ofbioluminescent fungi that you
can find in the forests inVirginia, and so the mycelium,
so the underground structure ofhoney mushrooms, is
bioluminescent, so it glowsalmost like an acidic yellow
color.
Jessica Bowser (13:18):
So this is really cool, because I'm
thinking like, as you're tellingme this I'm thinking back to a
backpacking trip I did manyyears ago with a small group of
friends. It was in September, soit was around this time of year,
and we were all sitting aroundat nights, like after we put up
our tents, and it was dark out,and there was something glowing,
and all of us saw it, but it waslike, the kind of thing that you
like, you don't want to sayanything, because you're like,
(13:39):
Oh, it's just trash, or it'sjust, like, just my eyes, or I'm
imagining it, or whatever, allof us saw it. It took forever
before somebody was finallylike, is there something glowing
over there? And then all of uswere like, yeah, what is that?
And we all walked over andturned on our flashlights, and
it was mushrooms. And none of uscould believe it. It was
Unknown (13:57):
really cool. Were they like, little mushrooms growing
on Deadwood.
Jessica Bowser (14:02):
So, you know, I'm gonna go back and check my
photos, and I hope I took apicture of it. This was like 10
years ago, Gabrielle, so I couldnot tell you what they looked
like, but I hope I have picturesof it,
Unknown (14:13):
because i I'm willing to bet real money based on the
fact that it was September andthat you were able to see it,
that it was probably a mushroomcalled Pinellas stypticus, which
is sometimes called the bitteroysterling. And they almost look
like tiny, little oystermushrooms. They're a little
fuzzy on top, and they glow sobright in the dark, if you get
(14:38):
the conditions right, if it'slike rained enough recently, and
they're young enough and it'sdark enough outside. You know, I
have been some places where youcould, you could, like, hold
some up, and you could lightyour way home. If you're
Jessica Bowser (14:50):
kidding, that's amazing. Yeah, I Gosh. Now I
really do hope that I I'm gonnabe so disappointed if I don't
have pictures like, I need toknow this now. But, yeah, what?
It was close, but it wasn't thatclose. It was probably still
like 20 feet away. So it wasn'tlike it was right next to us,
like it was a little distanceinto the forest, yeah, oh my
gosh, so cool. And then, youknow, as you're talking about
(15:11):
some of these other species, doyou ever have the experience
where you, like, find somethingand you don't know what it is,
so you leave it, and then yourealize later on what it was,
and you kick yourself like thathuge puff ball that I found that
I thought was a soccer ball onthe side of the trail. There
were three of them, and I leftthem there because I had no idea
what they were. And I went backevery year for a couple years
after that, looking for it. Inever found it again. And I've
(15:33):
never found giant puff ballssince then. And now I'm just
like, I can't believe I didthat. I can't believe I left it
there.
Unknown (15:41):
I think that I've had experiences that are similar to
that, especially like early onin my foraging journey. Now, at
this point, there are timeswhere I can't key something out
in the forest, you know, I don'thave the right information with
me, or maybe I've foundsomething that just hasn't been
described, and then I figure itout later. But I think now, if I
(16:05):
couldn't identify it in theforest, I probably shouldn't
have brought it back with me toeat in the first place. So I
usually recommend that beginnersand really everybody, because
everybody is susceptible togoofing up. We are humans who
very often succumb to DunningKruger, you know, believing that
(16:28):
the little bit of informationthat we have covers more than
than it really does. You know, Iwill tell beginners like, you
know, the most dangerousposition to be in is not knowing
nothing. It's knowing 10 things,because you're going to think
that every thing that you seeoutside is one of those 10
things that you know, instead ofassuming that it's information
(16:53):
you don't have with beginnersand everybody else, I usually
encourage people to try toidentify something positively
three times before you eat it.
My friend Sam Thayer calls itbanana confidence, being as
confident of the thing thatyou're foraging as you would be
like identifying a banana. Weall know what bananas look like,
right? And there's like a littlevariation. You might get a
(17:14):
little confused between, like abanana and a plantain, for
example, but, but like we know,and we can kind of see the
differences. And if you're notconfident enough to be able to
say yes, like, I know thisintimately. I know exactly what
this is, or I can positivelyidentify it, you probably
shouldn't be eating it.
Jessica Bowser (17:35):
I believe that that's true, because now, when I
see something, I know forcertain that it is what I think
it is. And if I'm not sure, Idon't take it, because I, you
know, it's just not worth therisk. Exactly. Yeah, I'll take
lots of pictures, and then I'llpost them in groups and say,
Hey, I think this might be this,but I'm not sure. What do you
all think? And then start to getsome feedback. And then, of
(17:55):
course, check my field guides.
But otherwise, I just leave itwhere it is, because the other
thing, I think is, what if Itake it and it's not something
that's edible, then I've justtaken it from the forest for no
reason now, it's got to betossed out,
Unknown (18:09):
yeah, and it can't like, it is important to, like,
handle the things that you findright. Like, you can touch any
mushroom you want. And touchingand smelling and like observing
mushrooms is really important.
Sometimes. I think that inmodern society, we kind of
expect immediacy witheverything. So we expect to be
(18:30):
able to snap a picture and knowwhat something is, upload it to
some kind of an AI that's goingto do all the work for us. But
identification is work. You haveto actually sit down and do it.
You have to look at thingspretty objectively. I can't tell
you the number of times that Ihave, like, found something and
hoped desperately that it was,you know, the mushroom or the
(18:52):
berry that I was looking for.
Actually, just the other day Iwas like, checking out this,
this tree that looked reallyunfamiliar to me, and it had all
of these gorgeous orange berrieson it. And I was like, this
could be sea buckthorn, but Idon't know if it is. I hope it's
sea buckthorn, but I'm not goingto, like, just pick a bunch and
(19:13):
then try to figure it out.
Instead, I, like, looked up allof the identifying features, and
it was not see buckthorn. It wasa fire Bush, but they look
similar enough from a distance,but I got really excited. But
like, if I hadn't taken thattime and had instead just gone
like, oh, it's an orange berrygrowing on a bush. It's gotta be
this. It's gotta be this, Iwould have definitely ended up
(19:35):
with an upset stomach.
Jessica Bowser (19:38):
Luckily, that's all
Unknown (19:40):
right, yeah, something worse, yeah. So no matter where
you are, you have to take thetime. You can't just rely on
your gut, because your gut willlie to you. Your gut really just
wants snacks. I know mine does,and you can't trust it. I.
Jessica Bowser (20:40):
Foreign. Any other species for fall, or
should we move on to winter?
Unknown (20:53):
Another one that's, I think, really an easy ID for
fall is the Lion's Manemushroom. And this one also
bleeds into winter. So Lion'sMane mushrooms also represent a
different sort of morphology, orlike mushroom shape, and they
have what are called teeth. Sothey're these really long tubes
that kind of look like the maneof a lion. So they're these
(21:14):
white, sometimes yellowish,mushrooms that grow on trees. I
often find them on Silver Maplebut you can find them on other
types of trees as well. Andbecause they like to taunt us,
they like to grow really high upin trees, you'll sometimes fall.
Find them on fallen logs too.
But they are really delicious.
They kind of taste like crab,yes, and you can cook them like
(21:36):
crabs. So I've made like crabcakes. I've made crab Rangoon
with with them, and they'reabsolutely delicious, so they
are probably starting to comeout right about now, and they're
pretty easy to identify. Therearen't really a lot of things
that look exactly like them.
There are other species that arein that that genus that like
(21:56):
little family of mushrooms, butthose are all edible too. So
that's a that's a really goodone to know.
Jessica Bowser (22:05):
Lion's Mane is, like, the mushroom that I'm
always looking for that I neverfind. Like, I found it one year
accidentally, and it was a huge,huge, like, I mean, it was
enormous. I don't think I'veever seen one that big. And
there were multiple, like, onone tree. And so I was so
excited. I was pulling out theknife in the bag, and I'm like,
(22:26):
super stoked. And my friend islooking at me like, What in the
world is wrong with you? And Ihave never found anything like
that again, like, I've maybefind really small ones, or I
found a halfway decent sized onewhen I was hiking in Ohio and
staying in a hotel, and therewas nothing I could do with it,
so I left it there, because I'mlike, Well, you know, I can't do
anything with this. And it'sjust, it's almost like, what do
(22:49):
we call it in birding, whenthere's a bird that you really,
really want to see, but italways evades you Nemesis bird,
like they, yeah, they call itlike your nemesis bird. And so I
feel like, lion's mane is mynemesis mushroom. If they're
Unknown (23:02):
incredible, oh my gosh, I love that. Yeah, it's true,
though. I and they, they grow inplaces where you're not
necessarily always looking solike most of the ones that I
find are really high up intrees.
Jessica Bowser (23:15):
Yes. And then I had a friend who found one in a
neighbor's yard, really high up,and she had to get a ladder, but
she knew she needed to askpermission, so she knocked on
the door. She could tellsomebody was home. Nobody
answered. She left a note thatperson called her back and asked
her what it was worth. Theywanted to charge her like $100
to be able to come back with theladder and go up and get the
mushroom out of the
Unknown (23:35):
tree. Oh my gosh, that's not cool, although you
should always ask permission ifyou want to collect something
from anybody's property.
Jessica Bowser (23:42):
That's exactly right. Okay, so we need to move
on. Let's talk about winter. Imean, are there mushrooms in
winter? Like, what can youreally find when it's cold
Unknown (23:50):
out there are mushrooms in winter? Mushroom season never
really ends. There's alwayssomething to find. So a lot of
the mushrooms that grow inwinter are going to be things
like, what are your mushrooms?
Which are these kind of likejelly. They literally look like
ears. The genus is auricularia,and they're these kind of brown.
Sometimes you find them andthey're like a little crispy,
(24:10):
but you can find them andthey're kind of gelatinous. And
those are actually reallypopular in a lot of Asian
cuisine. So you'll find them insoups. Sometimes they're just
called ear fungus, which is sucha like, gross, yeah, when you
think about it, it's just like atranslation issue, I think. But
you'll often find them in soupsand stews and like a lot of a
(24:31):
lot of Chinese recipes, sothat's often how I'll use them.
You can also make candy withthem. So you can, like, boil
them in sugar water or juicewith added sugar, and then,
like, dry them out, and then ifyou roll them in a little bit of
malic acid, then you can makesour ear gummies, which is just
like, fun and weird.
Jessica Bowser (24:54):
I definitely need to get your recipe for
Whittier candy, because I keepfinding wood ear and I'm sure.
People have seen it all thetime, and they just don't even
know what it is, because it'llbe like on a stick, on the
ground, on the trail when youwalk over. I have tried
different things, and everysingle time, my husband's like,
I'm not eating snot, boogermushrooms, because that's what
he like the texture of it. Hecan't get over it. And
(25:17):
everything I try, I think it'sfine, but he he can't deal with
it, and he's always complaining.
So if I made candy out of it, Iwill bet he eats it. You can
Unknown (25:25):
get a lot of people to eat things that they would never
eat. If you say here, this iscandy. And I feel like, I feel
like this is gonna work. You'regonna have to report back and
tell me, but I feel like this ishow, this is how you get
Jessica Bowser (25:39):
him. I think that's right. Okay. What else
can we find in winter?
Unknown (25:43):
So another one of my favorite mushrooms is a mushroom
called the Blue it. It has likethree scientific names. It's
either calibia Nuta, clitas, benuda or lapista Nuta, but it is
this gorgeous purple mushroom.
You have to be kind of carefulwith purple mushrooms, because
some of them are going to be inthe genus courtinarius, and some
of those purple cortinarius canbe sickeners. Those are going to
(26:07):
have rusty red spores. So you'regoing to be able to see like
along the stem, usually they'llhave kind of a little, a little
rusty looking stain. So stayaway from those. But the wood
blue. It has almost like a lilacpurple color everywhere. And
they kind of smell a little bitlike freezer burned orange
(26:28):
juice, but they taste so goodwhen you cook them. Usually I
can smell them before I can seethem, and they'll grow in leaf
litter and in Pine Duff. So youkind of have to, you have to,
like, keep an eye out for littlelike lumps in the forest,
because sometimes they'reunderneath, but when you find
them, you usually find a lot,and they taste so good. And I've
found them all the way intoJanuary here.
Jessica Bowser (26:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna be crawling around looking for
some things now I see, like,your videos online, and you're
down on the ground, and you'relike, Yeah, I'll look for these
bumps. And then you lift someleaves, and there they are. And
I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. Ihave to try that.
Unknown (27:05):
Yeah, this is why I love taking kids on forays. They
always find things becausethey're low to the ground, so
they see more
Jessica Bowser (27:12):
that makes sense. Yeah? Anything else in
the winter?
Unknown (27:16):
Oyster mushrooms are another thing that is really
popular in winter, I find themall the way through winter, I
have found oyster mushrooms,like in winter, in February in
Michigan, frozen. They aredelicious. They're very easy to
identify. So they grow in theseshelves. So you'll see them kind
of in a big clump, and they havethis really interesting Gill
(27:37):
structure that helps you toidentify them. So the top of the
mushroom, it'll usually makelike kind of a pearlish color,
almost bluish, sometimes verylight gray or white. And then
you look underneath, and you'vegot all of these stems kind of
coming to the same point, andthe gills travel all the way
down the stem. It's a featurethat we call decurrent. So when
(27:59):
you hear that something that thegills are decurrent, it means
that they're traveling all theway down the stem too, all the
way to the point of attachment,and they are so just easy to
use. So if you're not a meateater, or you want to eat less
meat, oyster mushrooms are oneof the best things that you can
sub in for meat. I'm not usuallysomebody who's like batter and
fry it, but honestly, batter andfry some oyster mushrooms and
(28:23):
then serve it with like, alittle bit of, like, an aioli or
something so good, just likelight and lovely. One of the
best, like, chicken sandwichesI've ever had in my life was
made from fried oystermushrooms. It was so good. The
texture is incredible.
Jessica Bowser (28:40):
Yeah, I do enjoy the texture. And I make a mean
mushroom barley soup out ofoyster mushrooms. And, like, I'm
a big fan of soup in winter, andthis just sort of beefs it up,
because, like you said, it hasthe texture of meat. It's, you
know, it's hearty. And so youfeel like, between the mushroom
and the barley, that you'regetting a lot out of that soup.
(29:00):
And it's so good for you.
Absolutely. I love that. Yeah,and our oyster is usually pretty
prolific, because I feel like,when I find them, I'm not
finding a little bit, I'mfinding so many.
Unknown (29:10):
Yeah, so oysters are going to grow on dead wood or
dying wood, and they're usuallygoing to grow in big flushes,
just like big clusters, yeah,like I've seen, like, a large
tree fallen over, and it'll becovered in oyster mushrooms,
like, way more than I couldpossibly carry out. Oh yeah,
absolutely. Almost anytime Ifind oyster mushrooms, I end up
(29:31):
like, calling friends and beinglike, so how many can you keep
in your fridge? Like I have somany friends who now know that,
like, when they get a call fromme, the first thing out of my
mouth is going to be, what's thefridge situation right now?
Jessica Bowser (29:45):
Because you need space. I could completely
understand that, especially withoysters. Like, I think of all of
the mushrooms that I have storedright now, I think I have more
oyster mushrooms than anythingelse. Like I dehydrate them and
then I stick them in jars orcontainers. And I've got them. I
mean, I I've had some going backa couple of years because, oh
yeah, it's, you know, you've gotso many of them that you're
(30:07):
like, it's to the point nowwhere, when I find oysters, I
just leave them alone, becauseI'm like, I don't have space for
anymore.
Unknown (30:13):
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
And there's also an invasiveoyster. This isn't as much of a
problem in Virginia yet, butit's coming where we're going to
start seeing the golden oysters,Pleurotus citronopyliatus, which
have now been confirmed to be aninvasive mushroom. We know about
invasive plants and animals, butwe don't know as much about
invasive mushrooms, and it'sbecause we don't study mushrooms
as much, yeah, but, but it'scoming. It's already a huge
(30:36):
problem in the Midwest. Theyjust absolutely will, like,
wreck a tree and completely takeit over. And they're very
effective decomposers,
Jessica Bowser (30:47):
yeah, I had no idea that there were non native
invasive mushrooms. Yeah.
(31:38):
Let's talk about spring andsummer, because I think also a
lot of people are outside inthese seasons, and they want to
know what they can find.
Unknown (31:44):
Then absolutely so in spring, we've got our morels.
That's going to be the mostpopular spring, spring fungus.
They're really delicious. Theyonly appear for a few weeks. You
definitely get a lot of peopleout in the woods. They are hard
to spot. They are very pickyabout where they like to grow.
You really do have to go andlook hard for them. So it is a
(32:08):
lot of fun if you want to gohunting for morels and you don't
want as much of the frustrationof looking for morels. I would
definitely recommend joining oneof the morel hikes that's put on
by the Mycological Society. Soyou can go mushroom hunting with
people who like, know mushrooms,and are going to be able to,
(32:32):
like, demonstrate where to findthem and what to look for in the
spring. I also collect a lot ofpheasant back mushrooms
cereposcuamosis, and they'repretty easy to ID. They have
this like pheasant featherlooking top. Sometimes they're
also called Dryad saddle, andthey kind of smell like
watermelon rind. But they'rereally good if you shred them up
(32:53):
and use them like chickenbreast. And then moving on to
summer, we've got chanterellesgalore. We have so many
different kinds of chanterellesthat grow in Virginia, and they
grow for ages. Last year, I wasfinding chanterelles into
November, so I started findingthem in late May, and I didn't
stop finding them until like midNovember, so they were just
going on forever. Yeah, thissummer was a great chanterelle
(33:16):
year, my freeze dryer anddehydrator just everything was
going nuts all the time, nobreaks. And then we've also got,
like, chicken of the woods,which you and I actually found
we
Jessica Bowser (33:28):
did quite a few very nice ones. Yeah.
Unknown (33:31):
So there are a couple of different varieties that grow
here in Virginia. We have thewhite poured chicken of the
woods. So on top, it kind oflooks like a traffic cone. It's
like darker towards the base,and then it gets lighter towards
the edges, and then underneath,it's either going to be this
crazy sulfur yellow color, orit's going to be almost like a
cream, very pale color. And thisis another poly pour. So kind of
(33:55):
like our hen of the woods,you're going to find it growing
on dead or dying wood. Sometimesit grows in these big shelves.
Sometimes it grows in like,almost a rosette. But they're
also easy to identify, andthey're quite good. They really
have more the texture of chickenthan the flavor, but chicken
tastes like everything, right?
Like everything tastes likechicken. So yeah, I use chicken
of the woods in a lot ofdifferent things, and you can
(34:18):
find it in great quantity, justlike, just like oyster
mushrooms,
Jessica Bowser (34:24):
yes, oh my gosh.
This is the other mushroom thatI have so much of. I don't know
what to do with it all. There'slike, bags and bags of it in my
deep freezer and, and I think Iwas telling you when we were
when we were cutting the chickenof the woods that we found when
we were together, I was like, myhusband's gonna kill me. He's to
the point where he's like, donot bring home any more. He got
to the point where he was sosick of eating chicken the woods
(34:46):
because, and, you know, I wasmaking it in different recipes,
so I was switching it upconstantly. We weren't having
the exact same thing everysingle time. But he was like, I
can't do it anymore. I'm sorry.
I'm like, but it's so good andand also. I think that's the
difference between, like, goingout and finding it yourself and
like, just, you know, beinghanded something, or put having
(35:07):
something put down in front ofyou, or even just going to the
store and buying something, youdon't get the same excitement
and joy out of it as you do whenyou have found it yourself.
Unknown (35:15):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, I very much feel that way.
Like foraging really connectsyou to your food in a completely
different way. You feel moreresponsible for it. You're gonna
take better care of it. You'renot gonna just like, let it rot
in your fridge because it washard work to acquire it, so you
have to do something with it.
Jessica Bowser (35:36):
Yeah, I totally agree. Now, chanterelles are
completely different. Those arelike, gold on the forest floor.
And when I bring them home, Ialways saute them with with the
intention of using them in somesort of a recipe. But never
fails, my husband comes in, andhe starts picking them out of
the pan and popping them in hismouth. And then I get panicked
that he's going to eat them alland I won't get any so then I
(35:56):
start doing the same. And nextthing you know, the whole thing
is gone.
Unknown (35:59):
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I did really well
on trend trails this year, butmost years they're not getting
preserved. They're gettingannihilated. That's right,
they're gone.
Jessica Bowser (36:12):
So I'm glad that you mentioned that there are
walks that people can go on. Idefinitely need to join one of
the one of those morale walks,because in all the years that
I've been looking, I have neveronce found one, and I was joking
with you that I'm to the pointwhere I don't even want to pick
them. I just want to take apicture of it and take a selfie
next to one and be like, I foundone. But let's maybe shift a
(36:32):
little bit into what some of theresources are for beginners,
like local clubs, workshops,communities like, how would you
recommend learning more?
Unknown (36:42):
If you go to the NAMA website, North American
mycological Association,nama.org, you can find the
closest mushroom club orMycological Society to your
area. So you can search bystate. Here in Virginia, I think
(37:02):
we have two clubs, but our ourclub, where I live, is the Blue
Ridge mycological club brumsey,which is run by Pat Mitchell,
who's a great mycologist, and itis so valuable to get to go on
walks with people who have spenta large portion of their life
dedicated to mushrooms. Becausemushroom people love to teach.
(37:24):
We love to gab. So we will teachyou like what we are seeing. So
you can come along and you canhang out with us, and we will
spend time with you if you wantto do something that's more like
a more like a one off, shamelessplug I lead walks you can find.
You can find those online. Idon't have any scheduled for the
(37:44):
moment, but it's common. Andthere are other people in town
who lead walks too. So that'slike the best thing you can do
is to get out in the woods withsomebody and get that hands on
learning. But then there arealso other resources where you
can do more independentlearning. There are some really
great websites. There areFacebook groups you can join,
like your state's Facebookmushroom group, and you'll learn
(38:06):
a ton, because people will postwhat they find, and you'll get
to like learn by osmosis. That'shonestly how I did a lot of my
learning at first, there aresome great websites, like
mushroom expert.com the guy whowrites it is really funny, and
you'll be able to learn a lot ofthe characteristics of different
mushrooms. And if somebody givesyou an ID on one of those
groups, you can look it up, andyou can learn more about that
(38:29):
mushroom and what led them tothat ID. There are also books.
This is really weird to say, butthese days, you actually do have
to be careful of some books,because if you just go on Amazon
and you buy whatever book showsup first, there's a chance that
it could be aI generated. So tryto find a book that is for your
area, that is written by aperson that you can Google, that
(38:51):
talks about species that you canfind. So one of the books that I
really like is written byAppalachian forager, and it is a
really great resource for ediblemushrooms in this area. There's
also southeastern mushrooms,which is another really
fantastic book. There are somegreat books for this area
(39:12):
because it is so diverse. Peoplewant to study the mushrooms
here. They want to learn moreand and share that information.
Jessica Bowser (39:20):
Are there any other tools that people need to
get started?
Unknown (39:24):
The nice thing about foraging is like human beings
are equipped with most of thetools that they need to do it
just on their own bodies, but Ido recommend getting a knife. So
I used to forage with, like,literally, a paring knife from
my kitchen and a trash bagbecause I was poor, and nowadays
(39:44):
I use a mushroom knife, whichI'm a big fan of. They have kind
of curved blades, so they'renice for carving away dirt and
debris and and then there's abrush on the other end, so that
you can brush things away andyou can excavate. Or evict
unwanted critters who might behiding inside your mushrooms,
(40:04):
and then baskets or bags. So tryto get something that has has,
like an open weave so thatspores, which are kind of like
mushroom seeds that are insideof your mushrooms, can still
fall out, and you can kind ofreplant mushrooms as you were
walking, I'm personally more ofa basket fan than a bag fan,
because I don't like crushing mymushrooms, but use what you got.
Jessica Bowser (40:29):
I learned from you that baskets are really
nice. I don't have a basketthough, and I'm usually out.
That's because I'm usually doingsomething simultaneously. I'm
simultaneously hiking andbirding and identifying plants
and looking for mushrooms, likeI'm doing all the things at
once, right? So, you know, Ihave, like, those nice cloth, I
guess they're supposed to be,like farmers market bags or like
(40:52):
grocery store bags, but theircloth and they fold up into a
little pouch, and I toss them inmy pack, so that if I find
something, I've always got a bagthat's
Unknown (41:00):
totally pack. Yeah, that's totally fair. I've sort
of switched from using abackpack to using a basket for
everything. So I feel sort oflike a forest. Jane Birkin, you
know, because she said she usedto carry around a basket because
she couldn't fit all of herstuff in a handbag. And then was
it Hermes, I don't know anythingabout fashion, but he, like,
(41:21):
made her this, this special bag,the Birkin bag. And she was just
like, I still like my basket,though, and that's how I feel,
because, honestly, there is nopurse that could hold everything
I need. Like, give me a big oldmarket basket, and then no
matter what I'm out therelooking for, it's gonna be fine,
(41:42):
yes.
Jessica Bowser (41:43):
And the mushroom knife, Gabrielle, I'm telling
you, you changed my life. I'm soglad. The moment you handed that
knife to me and said, use this,I was like, Oh my gosh, where
has this been my whole life? Imean, I've been, I've been using
just a regular pocket knife, andit's not the same. Plus, yours
had a brush on the end of it,which was so smart, because you
(42:06):
said, why wait till you get hometo clean them, and have to do
all the work, and then the messis in your kitchen. You can do
it right here in the field, andoh my god, like I came home with
perfectly cleaned trimmed, likeready to go chicken of the
woods. I didn't have to do theextra work in my kitchen. And
sometimes the extra work is thatlittle thing that makes you
(42:26):
decide, I don't have time forthis now, or I'm not going to do
this now
Unknown (42:29):
totally, and it's more sustainable to do it out in the
woods. Because when you're like,trimming everything in your
kitchen, what are you going todo? You're just going to, like,
maybe throw it in your compost.
Maybe it goes in the trash.
Maybe it goes down the sink, andif you're doing it out in the
woods, like, I always kind offeel bad for the mushrooms, like
the the bugs that I evict frommy mushrooms, because I'm like,
(42:50):
I'm like, kind of taking yourfood here. Sorry, but if I'm
leaving all the trimmings, thenI can also leave the bugs in the
trimmings. So it's like, hey,consolation prize, you still get
your snacks. I'm just going totake this part,
Jessica Bowser (43:02):
yes, especially if, when you get home and you
open the bag and there's bugs inthe bottom of the bag,
Unknown (43:07):
uh huh, yeah, yeah. I carry them
Jessica Bowser (43:11):
outside, but and put them at back outside, but I
don't know if I'm releasing theminto a place that they're going
to be able to survive. I justYeah.
Unknown (43:19):
The thing is, like, if you put mushrooms into your
basket dirty, they're going toget everything in your basket
dirty, yeah, and that dirt isgoing to get, like, embedded in
your mushrooms. So I don't putthings in my basket unless
they're clean, trimmed, ready togo
Jessica Bowser (43:34):
totally it's the first thing I did when I got
home after we were together thatday, is buy one online, and it
showed up the next day, and Iwas dancing around my living
room. I got so excited. I was
Unknown (43:44):
so glad. Like, if I could change anybody's life in
one small way, I'm gonna ridethat high for a while.
Jessica Bowser (43:50):
Yes, and they're not super expensive, and they're
small, you throw them in yourpack. Like, I just don't know
why I didn't have one all along.
So if I had, if I had anyadvice, you're the expert here.
But if I had any advice, I'd belike, get yourself a mushroom
nut. You want
Unknown (44:04):
to if you want to forage mushrooms, it really does
make a difference. Yeah. Onething I will say is, like, when
it comes to buying stuff, trynot to buy things until you know
that you're going to actuallyuse them. So a lot of people
will get into foraging, andthey'll just be like, Oh my
gosh. And now I want to buy,like, six beautiful baskets, and
I want to get this whole knifeset, and I want to get a hoary
(44:27):
Hori, and I want to get trimmersand pruners and all of this
stuff. And you're like, Whoa.
This just turned intocapitalism. Maybe we should,
like, just see what we alreadyhave, see what we can make work
like, if you know that you'renot going to be really into
making, like, juices from yourberries, maybe you don't need a
steam juicer. Maybe, like, youjust need the things to do, the
(44:48):
stuff that you know you're goingto be into, and then you can add
on over time. If you're notgoing to be gathering a ton of
things, maybe you don't need adehydrator right off the bat.
Maybe you can. Just use thedashboard of your car for a
while, until you go, you knowwhat a dehydrator would be a
good purchase for
Jessica Bowser (45:05):
me. That makes total sense. I say the same
thing about outdoor gear all thetime, because people go down
those rabbit holes real quick.
And you it's just not necessary.
Like, you know, acquire thethings that you really think
you're going to use and investin those one piece at a time.
Yeah, going crazy from thebeginning, invest
Unknown (45:24):
in tools that are going to make your job easier, but you
have to know what that job isfirst. You have to know, like,
what are the things that I amspending a lot of time on? One
thing that I would definitelyrecommend if you're going to be
foraging a lot of mushrooms is asalad spinner. They are so
useful for cleaning mushrooms.
Jessica Bowser (45:40):
So put that in your book. I mean, you have a
whole list of things in yourbook that you recommend for
different different projects,different recipes, different
whatever you're planning to do,but the salad spinner one, you
said to me when we weretogether, do you know the salad
spinner trick?
Unknown (45:56):
It's life changing, especially for morels, because
they get so dirty. No matterwhat you do, you're gonna,
you're gonna find grit everytime, and the salad spinner just
dislodges the grit so well, I'ma huge fan. Mm.
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