Summer Mushrooms

[Dark Cloud]

My dad and I have been getting some chantrells for a few weeks now but last week we found the holy grail... Black Trumpets! I have eaten many diff mushrooms and Trumpets are by far my favorite.

Heres is a little blurb I found about them. They mention Binghamton in Upstate NY, well I live about 10 miles from there...

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Perhaps the least likely looking edible wild mushrooms, the Black Trumpet mushroom (Craterellus fallax, see photos, right and below right) and its twin species, the Horn of Plenty (C. cornucopioides, see photo, above) are exceptionally worthy of their gourmet status. Some of my favorite mushroom-hunting areas are aound the Binghamton area of upstate New York, where there are plenty of oak and beech, which are the usual mycorrhizal tree partners with these symbiotic mushrooms, and the only mushroom hunters thereabouts who don't guard the secret locations of their black trumpet spots as they would the combination to their safes are those who haven't found a good patch of 'em yet.

The reason for their popularity? Though their size is modest and their flesh thin, their flavor is outstanding—and it's matched by an aroma so delightfully fragrant that this mushroom is actually used to flavor dry, mild-tasting white wines: a few fresh or dried specimens are slipped into a freshly opened bottle which is then recorked and allowed to sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Remarkable, delicious, and fun! Of course, the choice of wine is everything, but those who practice this art find the search for the best vintage for this unusual recipe to be half of the fun.

Fruiting in July, August and September in locales where snow falls each winter (later in the fall in warmer climes), these mushrooms can be difficult to locate, as their color is variable but varies only between gray, brown, and black! Sometimes they will stand out fairly well against a green-moss background, perhaps near the base of a tree, but just as often they elect to fruit amidst dead leaves and twigs, where their drab colors camouflage them very well. The best place to watch for them is in places where beech and oak trees are mixed throughout many acres of forest. Perseverance is mandatory, but it is also very nicely rewarded… eventually, for usually where there are any at all, there are usually a lot more fairly nearby. And that's a good thing, since it takes a sizeable number of individual mushrooms to make a pound fresh-weight.

Close examination will show that there are no gills or any other specialized spore-producing structures on one of these mushrooms: It is simply a cone- to trumpet-shaped layer of fungal tissue that flares on the"bell" end of the "trumpet." The edge at the flared end is typically inrolled. Occasional specimens flare only little or not at all, seeming more like tubes than trumpets. For the most part, they grow in clusters.

Based on DNA studies, some mycologists are no longer convinced that there are two distinct biological species here—but many who have studied these and the related chanterelles a lot, myself included, do. I find two distinct forms: One (which I regard as the Black Trumpet, C. fallax) is gray to black, very scaly on the inner surface, fairly fragile, and produces pinkish-tinged spore prints; the other (the Horn of Plenty, C. cornucopioides) is consistently brown, not markedly scaly, fairly elastic, and produces unpigmented white spores. Also, darker specimens of C. fallax appear almost blue on the outer spore-producing surface—a feature which often seems exaggerated by photography—and it is typically more robust, with thicker flesh near the base.

In any event, the mushroom hunter needn't fret over which is which, for both forms taste and smell fantastic! They're commonly dried and stored in airtight containers for use months or even years later

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It has been 3 years since we have found any so I was prety pumped to make one of my favorite dishes.

Here is what they look like...

And here is our haul, about 3 lbs!

And here is the dish I make with them. Sometimes I add them to stews or soups but usually I make this "pasta" dish...

Get some onions going in a little olive oil, while prepping some grape tomatoes...

Add the mushrooms in, then about a cup of white wine. After a few minutes in go the tomatoes along with 5-6 cloves of garlic plus a bunch of salt and pepper...

While this was going on I have some pasta cooking. I like a pasta called campanelle but bowties, linguini, ect would work...

When the pasta is done and draining I added about 3/4 of a stick of butter to the mushroom mixture. Between that and the juice from the tomatoes and shrooms you should have a nice sauce for the pasta. Not alot but enough to coat things a bit.

Toss it with the pasta and add some parmesian cheese...

Hard to describe the flavor of these but they are delicate and full of flavor!

[reinhard1]

that is amazing. the many types of shrooms and how tasty they are. plus you hit a great supply of your favorite. thanks for the pictures. great stuff. good luck.

[IlliniWalli]

excellent, interesting post!!!

i wonder if we have trumpets down this way (western Illinois)? we have plenty of oak trees.

i might have to go for a hike and check it out if we ever get a day when the heat index isnt in triple digits.

would be great to find some summer shrooms to bridge the gap between spring morels and fall hen of the woods.

[pushbutton]

Yeah, nice post DC! I found a ton of chickens and have been trying to scrounge up some more varieties, but there about 5 million mosquitoes between me and that goal, and they seem think full strength deet.is a pre dinner accompanyment.