During Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend in January 2018, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a mushroom camp put on by the Sonoma County Mycological Association (“SOMA”) at the Catholic Charities CYO camp in Occidental, California (I assume SOMA leases the space for the mushroom camp). I had wanted to attend this camp for many years, but was either deterred by cost (it is approximately $375 for the weekend, which includes food, lodging, foray/fieldtrips and lectures) or scheduling conflicts.
In a nutshell, I am so glad that I went, and intend on attending annually for the foreseeable future. As one of the participants at the camp who attends every year, told me, “This is THE mushroom camp of the year for all mushroom geeks” (I do not know enough about mushrooms yet, to count myself as being part of that tribe). From a gardening perspective, I had attended a growing edible mushroom workshop once, dabbled with growing oyster mushrooms and inoculated a mushroom log with limited success, but had no other experience apart from that.
I will report on the various classes I attended in my upcoming blog entries. But for this blog entry's purposes, I will focus on the very first foray (i.e., fieldtrip) I attended while at camp. The title of the foray was appropriately called, “Intro to Mushroom ID,” led by a SOMA member, Fred Salisbury, who I found to be friendly, humble, knowledgeable, approachable, and just plain great.
Fred led us through the CYO campgrounds, collecting a dizzying number of wild mushrooms (mostly inedible and brought back to camp for identification—see pictures below). As Fred explained, there is no harm in picking mushrooms, as they are the fruiting body of fungi which live below the forest floor. In other words, it is the equivalent of picking fruit off of a fruit tree—a tree will continue to produce fruit every season so long as it is alive.
One of my favorites picked on the foray, was/is the Candy Cap mushroom (Lactarius rubidus). It was the first time I had ever seen a fresh one in person (I did not taste it, as it needs to be prepared before ingesting). Fred said that he and his family would collect these when they were/are in season, and make various baked goods out of them. What I found fascinating about the Candy Cap, is that not only is it edible, but that as it becomes dehydrated, it smells increasingly like maple syrup (but was told that it does not taste anything like maple syrup). I did not believe this until I, myself, took a whiff of a dried Candy Cap mushroom. It was a delightful and unexpected surprise.
Fred also cautioned that before eating any known edible mushroom (and never eat a mushroom that you can't confidently identify). you should sample a tiny bit, wait at least 24-48 hours to see if you have any sort of reaction, before consuming more.
If you are interested in learning more about SOMA and its camp, please seehttp://somamushrooms.org/ or “Like” them on Facebook.