General Outdoor Discussion
Fall mushrooms
Good Honey mushroom story. Years ago I owned a 120 acre piece of property in central Wisconsin. I had been taught to pick honey mushrooms by a friend of mine. I always got some each fall but nothing all that great for quantity. I would say somewhere in the early 1990's we had the perfect storm of honey mushroom weather and I was out in my woods and saw hundreds of them starting to pop up everywhere. They were mostly buttons on that day. I called my mother who loved honey mushrooms and she came over and couldn't believe the numbers of them. She was polish and knew what she was looking at was a once in a lifetime occurrence. She picked for hours and filled several shopping bags. Then she asked me if it would be alright for her to call some of her friends who were all from "the old country" that loved wild mushrooms. I told her that would be great because there were so many that they were all going to go to waste unless they were picked in the next few days. The next morning a small caravan of cars with older gals came up my driveway. I would say about 10-15 older elderly grandma's and grandpa's came and picked most of the day. The mushrooms were about perfect a age for picking. They filled grocery bags full of them. The next day word spread and I sure didn't care who came and there had to be 25-30 cars that came with all these grandma's and grandpa's . It was incredible but as I said once in a lifetime experience. There really were millions of honey mushrooms everywhere which did not make a lot of sense considering that when I find them now they are here and there and maybe a few hundred if you work at it. I took a day of vacation just to be part of something I'll likely not see again the rest of my life. These gals were absolutely giddy with excitement! The land had been select cut on oaks for years.
WelderGuy
They are excellent. Take a long blade knife along and cut it off close to the ground leaving the root and stem. Wash it in cold water, separate, divide, and slice it. Place the slices on a cookie sheet wet and place in the freeze. Put the frozen slices in a Zip-Lock freezer bag. I just saute mine in butter until tender, don't over cook them. You will see why they are called "Chicken of the Woods".
Enjoy!
Keep a tight line!!!
Jerry
I’ve never mushroom hunted before but would really like to. I came across this last year and at the time I had no clue what it was. After doing a little research over the summer I know a few of the common mushrooms, I’m pretty sure this is chicken of the woods? If so, is there a chance it will grow in this same place again this year?
