Wild Mushrooms

Feels like everyone who forages upstate has a special and very secret mushroom gathering location. I had hoped to find some of our own to enjoy but I had no idea where to start so I didn’t make it a priority. A few weekends back my childhood best friend came out to visit with her family. Most of the weekend was spent fawning over my friends’ baby, playing boardgames, and slowly exploring Mountaindale’s downtown.

Though we planned to go out to eat, while out on an adventure into the back woods of our property we spotted some very elegant and very obvious oyster mushrooms. Mushrooms don’t last long so we harvested quite a number them for dinner and beyond - this round was fried and the rest were dried for later use.

To our surprise, we also discovered a very fresh batch of Chicken of the woods by merely looking up as we hiked. One of our friends had put into the universe that he’d like to try this weird fungus and a few minutes later, there it was. The pieces we brought home were breaded and fried. Now we totally get why these mushrooms have their name, they taste and have the same consistency as fried chicken nuggets.

A few weeks later I thought we had hit the jackpot again but this is just a reminder that there are a slew of wild mushrooms that grow in these parts. High up on a maple tree, we had discovered Northern Tooth, a bitter and unenjoyable tasting mushroom that is too tough to eat. Note the long teeth under the mushroom. So into the compost pile these go.

Foraged Shagbark Hickory Syrup

Moon over snow covered land

Once home I cleaned all the pieces of bark ; removing the dirt and lichen that settled in each cranny. After that you must toast the bark in the oven on low heat, which makes the entire house smell incredible - maybe I’ll reuse the bark for this during our holiday get together. Here is the recipe that I followed, which was found on Real Tree Though I didn’t have any corn syrup, I don’t particularly even like it so that was fine. We used sugar and the tea created when we boiled the hickory bark - reduced it to a thick syrup and then canned it. I’m so incredibly pleased with this beautiful syrup. It has a smoky sweet taste and was incredibly easy to make ( I don’t think I quite got all the sugar absorbed but it was my first try so yo u see a little crystallization starting). I’m even going to pat myself on the back since this was also the first time I ever sterilized and canned anything. Looking forward to foraging and canning more in the future. Next adventure is collecting white pine to make tea.

Last weekend, my partner and I took our Saturday date day to the woods and joined The Outside Institute on their Winter Foraging Expedition. Just a few weeks before our area got about 15” of snow so finding a safe place to forage was a bit hard but Laura managed to scout a good location at a state park. On our journey, we learned about identifying plants and ways to use them like rose hip, barberry, blackberry, birch, spruce, cedar, crab apples, and hickory. Hickory stuck in my head because Laura mentioned that besides it being great for smoking, hickory was also delicious as a syrup. Since our Christmas was going to be a savory brunch with our family, I was super interested in adding a special syrup to our day. So, we foraged some of the bark that was already pulled away from the tree.

Finished homemade Shagbark Hickory Syrup