PITTSBURGH — Kat Lieder admits she used to hate mushrooms because she thought they were creepy.
When she dug in the garden with her father as a kid, something about the fleshy, spore-bearing fungi gave her the willies.
“I thought they were only associated with death and dead things and decay,” she says.
So even she was surprised to find herself on a hilly, wooded trail near the Lodge in North Park on a recent Saturday morning, rooting through fallen leaves and scrutinizing dead logs and mossy stumps in search of mushrooms poking up from the forest floor.
Thinly sliced lean steak, garlicky mushrooms and fresh spinach are rolled into a whole grain wrap for these attractive pinwheels.
The University of Pittsburgh professor of global studies was in fine company: More than 100 new and veteran foragers, divided into small groups depending on how hard and far they wanted to hike, were on trails throughout the park. All had the same mission: to gather, study and exchange information about wild mushrooms. The daylong event also included lectures, displays, a cooking demonstration and a grand feast featuring more than a dozen mushroom dishes.
It was all part of the 21st annual Gary Lincoff Mushroom Foray held Sept. 18 by the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club. Named for national mycology expert and local fungi fanatic Gary Lincoff, it brings together people of all ages, experience levels and interests for a day of mushroom fun and education.
Like so many events, last year’s foray was canceled because of the coronavirus. So the crowd buzzed with excitement during the early morning welcome at Rose Barn. A table inside held waxed bags and empty egg cartons for those who forgot baskets for collecting.
Longtime member Josh Doty, of McMurray, Pennsylvania is an identifier for the club. Like many in the group, he got into foraging 12 years ago while photographing them, “then had to learn what I was taking pictures of,” he says with a laugh. He knows not just their common monikers such as maitaike, chicken of the woods and black trumpets but also their Latin names.
One mushroom his group encounters again and again is Russula. Found near oak trees, they come in a rainbow of colors and are one of the most recognizable genera among mycologists and mushroom collectors. He also points out Lactarius, also known as milk cap mushrooms because their fruitbodies ooze a sticky, milky latex when sliced with a knife.
While mushrooms often serve as decomposers by digesting dead organic matter, some are actually parasites that attack a living host and live on it, sometimes killing it. Many more, he says, are intimately linked to trees by symbiosis.
That’s what Lieder found so fascinating when she watched the Netflix documentary “Fantastic Fungi” during the pandemic. She sought out the Real Fungi stand at the Bloomfield Saturday Market. Her many fun conversations with its owner led her to not only grow shiitakes and oyster mushrooms in her basement, but go on her first foray with WPMC.
“They are connected with living things in ways I hadn’t ever thought about,” she says.
The September foray, which netted more than 150 species, including a rare pouzarella, drove the point home.
“It was so delightful to really know how many living things that are all around you that you don’t see,” she says. “And everyone was so generous with their knowledge.”
Still, fear persists for many would-be foragers, what with toxic beauties such as the milky-white Destroying Angel mushroom — a single bite can kill you — sprouting on the forest floor along with edible morels, oyster mushrooms and chanterelles. And with book titles such as the soon-to-be-released “How to Forage for Mushrooms without Dying” by Frank Hyman, who can blame us?
It doesn’t help that many mushrooms can only be identified under a microscope.
“The popular misconception is that we know what all the mushrooms are,” says mycologist Michael Kuo, who was one of the foray’s guest speakers and the expert voice behind MushroomExpert.com. “But we don’t, and that’s why [foraging] can be dangerous.”
That’s why joining a club like WPMC is smart. They follow the mycologist’s golden rule: Never eat an unidentified mushroom!
Club members Kristen and Trent Blizzard, authors of the new “Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide” (Skyhorse, $20), understand foraging can be a scary thing for newbies. But as with any hobby, if you invest in a good local or regional identification book and do your research, it can be less so.
“This community is full of wonderful people who are willing to share their knowledge, and have so much enthusiasm,” says Blizzard.
The Blizzards, who live and forage in Colorado, started their mushroom adventure as bloggers on Modern Forager. They quickly built a tribe by offering “burn maps” that detail where to find morel mushrooms that carpet charred forest floors.
Full of gorgeous photographs, their cookbook is a go-to guide for anyone who loves to hunt or cook with wild mushrooms. Along with tips on harvesting etiquette and kitchen tricks, it includes chapters on preservation and cooking techniques. (Did you know you can candy chanterelles or infuse mushrooms with alcohol?) Then it’s on to recipes from 25 skilled foragers around the country.
There are 115 in all, covering 15 different varieties of culinary fungi — everything from jams and soups to jerky and pasta dishes, using favorites such as chicken of the woods, oyster, morels and porcini mushrooms. There also are profiles of some of the foragers sprinkled throughout “because they’re so awesome and the world needs to know about them,” says Ms. Blizzard.
The recipes had to be simple, and dishes the cooks actually ate on a regular basis.
As a result, “a lot of flavors came into play that were very exciting,” Blizzard says, with Eastern European, Thai and California influences. “We learned mushrooms can be delicious prepared in a different way.”
What makes foraging such a great hobby, she says, is that it never gets old. It’s also sustainable and gets people outside, surrounded by nature.
“It grows with you, and it’s thrilling,” she says.
