Huge storms expected to bring superb mushroom foraging for those in the know
MENDOCINO CO., 11/23/24 — Even with highway closures, flooding, and downed trees, the storms are filling Mendocino County’s mushroom hunters with anticipation. As soon as the rains end, foragers head out to find nature’s fungal treats. November, December and January are the best mushroom-hunting months, especially when blessed by heavy rain.
“I think these rains will bring lots more chanterelles in the Jackson Forest,” said San Francisco’s Boris Krasniansky, who drove up for the fungi festival last weekend.
A lot more people learned how to find, identify, cook and craft with mushrooms at the first Mendocino Coast Fungi Festival, held recently at the Caspar Community Center.
Cal Fire biologists hosted morning walks out in Jackson Demonstration State Forest as part of the festival. About 50 people showed up Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. for guided tours led by Cal Fire’s Robert Douglas and Caitlin Grace. A light rain had fallen the previous week, making the foraging pretty good, but the experienced foragers were talking about the probability that the forecasted big rains would cause many more fungi to pop their wrinkly “heads” through the forest duff.
The festival gained new members for the Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club, said club president Tom Jelen. Some came just for the foraging or workshops on mushroom dyeing and propagation. Jelen said the event will return next year after the event exceeded even the planners’ expectations.
“It was a hugely successful festival for our first endeavor,” Jelen said. “Lots of people were blown away at how well everything ran for a first-time festival, how accessible it was, and how affordable it was.” The price for non-members was $35 for a day.
Participants all seemed to be having fun. Many were familiar faces to the mushroom-loving community. Some were hesitant about attending both days as one had to pay the full admission both days—there was no weekend pass. But the forest walks were free.
The workshops filled the community center’s conference room. Jelen said, “Both the propagation workshop and fabric dyeing workshop were filled up, and there were lots of people observing. The free morning forays were a big hit. People were very thankful to the club, and especially Robert Douglas, who led the forays.”
The festival also included cultural workshops led by Xa Kako Dile and the Land Back movement. “Many people came up to me to thank me for having the cultural component be an integral part of our festival,” said Jelen. Xa Kako Dile is a collective led by indigenous women out of Fortunate Farm in Caspar. Land Back is a statewide and local effort to introduce traditional Indigenous practices on land that has been returned to Native people.
Several kids were among the early mushroom hunters and had a big advantage over the adults, both in enthusiasm and in being closer to the ground. There were experts who helped comparative novices, and traipsing about the forest early in the morning is a good way to introduce yourself to the neighborhood; a woman who just moved to Fort Bragg for work made some new friends.
Boris Krasniansky was one of several people who drove for hours for his hobby. He belongs to both the San Francisco Mushroom Club and the Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club. He showed how to identify a good spot to return to, where future chanterelles were present as tiny “pins.” Add rain and soon a bounty appears.
The experts warned newbies to stick to mushrooms with no poisonous look-alikes. And never eat any mushroom raw. Another no-no: Don’t ask “Is that mushroom edible?” Most mushrooms classified as edible taste bad or bland. The foragers have a list of the most tasty and won’t gather ones they don’t know. Thorough cooking is key to good mushroom eating, the experts said.
“One nice find I made was a manzanita bolete, the one with a red cap,” Krasniansky said. “Some people report that it can cause stomach issues, and it is better to dry them or boil them for at least half an hour before consuming.”
Everyone foraged for an hour, then put all the mushrooms on makeshift tables made of rocks and a folding picnic table from a traveling couple’s vehicle. Everybody participated in group identifications, which often involved extensive arguments about which variety of species was which. The cauliflower mushroom, looking just like its namesake, was the easiest to identify. The scariest part of mushroom hunting is that some favorites, like chanterelles, are tricky. People found both false chanterelles, which are poisonous, and delicious white and golden chanterelles. Douglas convincingly showed how, when held side by side, the folds in real chanterelles look nothing like the gills in false chanterelles.
Chanterelles were one of the prime finds on the trip, along with boletes, hedgehogs and other mushrooms many felt comfortable eating afterward. The Caspar forest is free of the invasive blackberries that halt walks in other areas of the coast, but a hat comes in handy, as tree branches can scratch the top of a forager’s head and duff tumbles down when one is on her hands and knees.
“I’m glad you are treating your mycophobia,” Douglas wrote later by email. “Learning the distinguishing characteristics of the myriad of mushroom species is the first step in curing this affliction.”
The next guided tours in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest by Douglas will be held at Camp 20, the halfway point between Willits and Fort Bragg, on Dec. 9. The Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club hosts a special meeting on Dec. 11 with Noah Siegel, co-author of “Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast,” who will be signing his new book, “Mushrooms of Cascadia.”
Learn more about the Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club at mendocinocoastmushroomclub.org.
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