Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Brief pieces written for Out There Magazine dot com - and they're better presented there. There here below more as a backup.

Kelly Chadwick

 Questions:  email k@spiritpruners.com

posted 4-07-16 - updated 9-1-16

Kelly Chadwick is an arborist and owner of Spirit Pruners. He grew up wandering the outdoors, which led to a lifelong passion for the natural sciences.

Velvet Top Mushroom

Cow Parsnip

Petals

Gobo

May's for Morels

Muppet Mushroom

Velvet Foot

Winter Chanterelle

Bunchberries

The Humble Puffball

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Velvet Top Mushroom

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This is the first in a series featuring wild edible fungi and plants from the Inland Empire. Frolicking outdoors can and, IMHO, should include a relationship with and knowledge of the world that surrounds you. Biking, hiking and snowshoeing are half the equation. The other half is becoming acquainted with our co-inhabitants in the woods, exploring their wild flavors and textures. Instead of seeing a “tree,” a “flower,” or “fungi,” I want you to see Wood Ears, Orchids, Bunch Berries, Truffles, Onions, etc.

Let’s start with one of the mushrooms you can find in the Fall after a couple drenching rains kick off the season: Boletus Mirabilis, the Velvet Top also known as the Admirable Bolete. Like all the life forms we will feature, it’s relatively simple and safe to identify. “Boletus” is both a genus and a family and refers to the group of terrestrial mushrooms with pores under their cap instead of gills and a distinct central stem. The Velvet Top is common in healthy moist mixed conifer woods particularly in far Northeast Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. I’ve also found good quantities around Glacier. It’s impressive  species though easy to miss as it blends into the surroundings. If you find a mushroom on a decaying conifer log, with a plush chestnut brown cap, pores underneath, and a stem with an enlarged base, voilà. If those descriptors sound intimidating, here are two bits of knowledge to help: it’s most likely the only Bolete you’ll find on wood and should you make an error, there is one rule to protect yourself from anything nefarious: cut a bit of the cap and if it doesn’t turn blue in a couple minutes, bon appétit.

This mushroom is fun to find, easy to identify and unusual in the lovely bright yellow color it adds to dishes. Use within a day or two of harvest as they deteriorate quickly. An interesting side note, the Velvet Top is both a saprophyte (dining on decaying wood, often Hemlock) and a symbiont (mutually supportive relationship, dining with living Hemlock.)

Identifying Attributes: grows on decaying logs, has pores instead of gills, a chestnut brown furry cap and similarly colored stem

Culinary Attributes: bright yellow when cooked, delicate soft texture, neutral to lemony flavor

Poisonous Look-alikes: none, but always be sure Boletes don’t have red or orange pores—those are the scary ones

Food/Wine Pairings: goes well with fish and white sauced pasta; for the wine, go sauvignon blanc or white burgundy.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Cow Parsnip

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Cocktails are the new wine, a culinary vehicle to experience the complexity of our planet.  Their ingredients are often derived from potent botanicals, thus a great use for wild edibles. Ecologically, cocktails are a way to sample native plants without decimating them— a sprig opposed to a plateful.  And, that brings us to Cow Parsnip.

For most of my life, I thought Cow Parsnip was poison Hemlock. As a child on the California coast, I spent many afternoons hiking around with a dull sword, i.e. a stick, chopping them in half. But it turns out, like many altruistic endeavors, I had bad info. Water Hemlock is deadly poisonous and in the same family, but easily separated by its diminutive stature and lacey leaves.

The first time I ate Cow Parsnip was high in the Lolo Mountains alongside a trickling stream with my partner. Though unnerving to break old beliefs and take the first bite, now it’s a trailside staple.

Identification is simple once you know its large playful looking form.  It grows near streams, seeps, and springs in the forest.  They’re generally 4 to 6 feet tall and the leaves divide into three pointy lobed sections collectively over a foot wide. The stalk is a ribbed tube. It’s best to harvest before the expansive umbrella shaped flowers emerge.

Called Wamush by the Kootenai, this is one of the easiest plants to collect. No digging, curing or cooking required. Just cut off a section of stem, peal the celery like strings, and you’re finished. It’s crunchy with a medicinal parsley flavor. Pick when young before the stem becomes too fibery. The timing of this depends on elevation and can extend into mid summer in subalpine habitat.

The herbal flavor melds with botanical based drinks like martinis and bloody mary’s. The stem is hollow—a crunchy vegetable and giant straw all in one. It’s also wide enough for bubble tea, though I haven’t heard of anyone trying this yet. For cooking suggestions, check out the Wild Food Girl blog: http://wildfoodgirl.com/2011/cow-parsnip-for-breakfast-dinner-dessert

Worth noting is the amazing variety of insects that toil around on the flower heads. One or two clusters are usually teaming with a miniature world of exotic creatures: butterflies, bees, beetles, etc.

There is one point of caution. Cow Parsnip exudes a toxin that if on your skin and exposed to sunlight can cause an itchy rash and even persistent blisters. The flowers, seeds, leaves, and roots have higher amounts of the irritant, furanocoumarin. It’s only released when tissue is damaged so brushing against the plant is fine. Reactions are most common when people are pulling or weed eating them in summer attire. Just be thoughtful and wash off with soap and water if necessary.

Identifying Features: Human height with central tubular stem, big oak/maple like leaf, and parasols of white blossoms often covered in a dizzying array of insects.

Look-alikes:  Giant Hogweed has higher toxicity and is an enormous member of this genus growing in coastal areas and further north.  Know the deadly Hemlocks which are easily differentiated.

Culinary Attributes: Savory and crisp. Can be used fresh on the trail, sparingly in salads, or a garnish for your summer cocktail.  Cooked, Cow Parsnip is suited for quiche and casseroles.

Liquor Pairings: In any vegetable or herb concoction and with clean dry drinks of Vodka, Gin, or Blanco Tequila.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Petals

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Spring’s anticipation leads to delusional expectations of woodland bounty before the ground has thawed. Foragers and Chefs start calling in March inquiring about items for seasonal menus and pantries. If they left the comfort of their kitchen for a walk in the woods they’d see only a few shoots pushing up through the duff in lower elevations. However, one exception is flowers. Early in the spring plants begin to bloom, far before their fruits and sometimes greenery immerge.

Having grown up around Green Gulch Farm, which supplied produce to Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, flowers were put on my plate from early childhood. By the 80’s they were a staple of nouveau cuisine and by the 90’s a multitude of species were being used in kitchens across the country. Most of these were cultivated. So it wasn’t until Hiking on Mt. Spokane several years ago as the forest woke from hibernation that I thought to try a wild strawberry blossom. The delicateness and levity of which was a profound contrast to the starkness and gravity of winter. Later in the season I sampled thimbleberry flowers and violets, then roses, and soon anything I knew was safe.

Petals won’t provide measurable nourishment; they’re like a kiss, fleeting and precious. When you eat a flower you are becoming intimate with the personality of the plant. The blossom is the most important anatomical feature for identification—their way of saying, this is who I am. Petals evolved from leaves to attract pollinators, which led to an explosion of shapes and colors along with myriad new plants and insects.

The common preparation of flowers is on salads and desserts or as a garnish. However there are countless applications. Use flowers of:  elderberry in liquor, yarrow for tea, lilacs infused in honey, locust in fritters, roses for jelly, dandelions into wine, chicory for a bitter endive-like element, milkweed fried, salsify pickled, lily’s stuffed, and so on. The flavors are generally versions of floral with a vegetal edge, yet there are exceptions. Violets are sweet, borage tastes like cucumber, trumpet bluebells are fishy, and lilacs are lemony. Hollyhocks are bland unless dried but bold in appearance. There are crunchy flowers like orchids and nauseatingly perfumy ones like the shampoo flavored water lily. On the trail, also look for birch catkins, cattail, chickweed, current flowers, Indian paintbrush, and hawthorn to start.

Before running out to frolic and feast in the underbrush, remember identification is critical. This summer at a gathering I was served flourless chocolate cake with a beautiful blue inflorescence adorning the top. I put the whole sprig in my mouth, chewed, swallowed and was instantly struck with a strong sense of danger. Standing up, I exclaimed to the host, “What was that flower on the cake?”

 “I don’t know, something from the garden.” She said.

“Flowers you put on food are supposed to be edible!” I reprimanded.

One of the children at the table asked, “is Kelly going to die”

And, then it came to me… larkspur. Which is not something you want to eat. I called a doctor friend who agreed it would be better if not in my body. So the porcelain god was worshipped and the only symptoms were a tingly numbness on my tongue.  That is your cautionary tale before embarking on the new pastime of petal nibbling.

General Rules: Harvest flowers in the morning that look fresh. Some need preparation like roses whose white bases are bitter or large flowers whose stamens and pistils are distasteful. Avoid buds. Be sure of your ID to species or genus in some cases.

Culinary Attributes: Use quickly to capture subtle essence. Visually striking as a garnish, in salads, on deserts, or floating in drinks. Concentrate in jams, syrups, vinegars or wine. Mix in spreads, marinades, and dressings. Dry and sprinkle as an herb.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Gobo

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Eat it for the name alone. Known in English as Burdock, this common weed, like much of what proliferates outdoors, is not an original part of our landscape, arriving with British settlers hundreds of years ago.

In my youth Gobo was a favorite food. It came marinated with sesame seeds on small side plates at traditional Sushi joints. My mother served it steamed with other root vegetables, and at the Zen Monastery we lived by it was sliced into soup.

Some folks don’t like its fibrousness. I find the chewy texture, earthy minerality, and artichoke-y aftertaste draw me inward like the smell of a dessert or subtle incense. The leaves and stems can be eaten, but I haven’t tried that yet. From experience, if you see the words, “can be eaten” it generally means in the case of starvation or watching your partner grimace. However, when camping, the leaves are used like those of the banana for wrapping food and cooking on coals or a grill. It also predates Hops in brewing recipes of yesteryear.

The Burdock plant is a staple amongst natural healers for numerous ailments going back millennium, with a focus on blood purification and skin issues, and is still widely used. FYI, it’s prudent to limit the consumption of potent or medicinal foods.

Burdock is recognized by a rosette of large (often over a foot long) wavy, lobbed, heart-shaped leaves with whitish fuzz on the bottom.  Late summer it becomes the culprit behind the round sticky burs we collect on our beloved sweaters—the bona fide originator of Velcro, produced in the second year after stem and flowers come forth. First year vegetation stays low to the ground and puts its energy toward nutrient production. It can be harvested in this first year with spring offering smaller roots and in fall deeper flavor.

You’ll find the plant in riparian and disturbed areas. Nearby rural environments are perfect hunting grounds, though it may be growing in your backyard so look there first. You will need a spade as the roots are often deep and plunging through rocky soil.

Unlike many wild edibles, don’t fret about overharvesting. Burdock is prolific, and the more you eat, the less cockleburs to groom after a summers outing. Animals fall victim too, especially birds. Besides, the eating of opportunistic species is finally being implemented as a best practice in managing tenacious populations.

Gobo can also be purchased at our local Asian and natural food markets. If you want to order it in a dish, head over to Syringa in CDA, the most authentic sushi restaurant around, where it’s served as a side or in maki.

Identifying Attributes: Giant wavy leaves with hollow stems and fuzzy bottoms emanating from a central point.

Look-alikes:  Rhubarb has solid stems and the poisonous leaves aren’t wooly. It doesn’t grow wild but can be found around yards and farms. Mullen, which is medicinal, grows in large rosettes but is differentiated by fuzzy topped elliptical leaves.

Culinary Attributes: Clean earthy flavor. Satisfyingly chewy if you enjoy feeling like a grazing animal, which I do.  Lends itself well to Asian flavorings. Think stir-fry’s, soups, steamed sides.

Wine Pairings: None, it’s an ingredient. If in an Asian dish, pick up dry sparkling wines, Loire Valley reds, or a cider.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

May's for Morels

Non edible - Coral Mushrooms Out there monthly dot com link

May’s for morels, mycophiles say. But at Out There Monthly, May is for corals! No scuba gear required because the forest corals are terrestrial fungi in the genus Ramaria.

Corals are more prolific in the Northwest than anywhere in North America and possibly on earth. Showing up a couple weeks after morels start and continuing into June—bolete season—they grow sporadically along trails or shallow draws in conifer woods, especially with hemlock. About every third year they flow down the hills in abundant veins of gold. Which makes them one of the few mushrooms mountain bikers can gather, being visible at high speeds.

Precise identification of corals can be difficult, especially in the fall when new and diverse species arise. So here are the three important guidelines.

·       1. Collect Ramarias in spring only

·       2. Stick with bright colors: white, yellow, orange, purple, etc.

·       3. Use larger specimens, i.e. fist-size or bigger when young

Though not dangerous, the small brown corals can make you sick. The only time I’ve been poisoned in 25 years of foraging was trying to identify one of these buggers. After microscopically narrowing it down to two options—one with a purgative effect, the other without—I cooked it up, ate a tablespoon, had a “mushroom flu” for a couple hours and was thus able to correctly identify it. For normal people, stay with the guidelines.

Corals, though not prized cuisine, are included here because of their prominence in the region. The flavor is clean with a hint of forest floor. Firm specimens are best, as Ramarias become wormy if the weather’s too warm or wet. Once home, shake them clean but don’t wash until prep time. Their flesh crumbles easily so to rid their dense branching bodies of duff use a kitchen sprayer.

Corals work in most mushroom dishes. Along with slicing, they can be broken into attractive bite-size florets that I find visually appealing in soups. They lend themselves well to broth; we reduce them into Italian brodo with tortellini. Like tilapia or zucchini they offer value and versatility over greatness.

In good years, such large quantities can be found, methods of preserving must be pursued. Blanched and placed in quart freezer bags, they’ll last about a year. For a delicious broth, cook older specimens in your largest soup pot with an onion and some garlic cloves. Freeze in ½ gallon containers and use in soups, sauces or risotto. Pickling firms up the texture, and they’re an unusual crudités option. Break them apart into broccoli like fronds before packing the jars. Unlike most mushrooms, Ramarias don’t dry well, becoming musty and developing poor texture when reconstituted.

Identifying Attributes: Resembles ocean coral with upright branching fingers. The flesh is brittle. Grows on the ground in rich humus and decomposing wood.

Cautionary Points: Avoid large portions your first time, as certain people experience a laxative effect. Steer clear of small brown corals.

Culinary Attributes: Offers versatility over haute cuisine. The understated forest-y flavors work with most sauces. Well suited for preservation, but not drying.

Wine Pairings: French Cabernet Franc, Montepulciano D’Abruzzo, Or Cru Beaujolais.  

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Muppet Mushroom

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The Muppet Mushroom is my name for Albatrellus ellisii, officially called Greening Goat’s Foot. A title that would drive off all but the most daring from eating it. This is probably why, in my 25 years of studying fungi, no one had ever mentioned its edibility. David Arora, the author of Mushrooms Demystified and other renowned books, told me recently that A. Ellisii was great if cut thin and cooked long. Which we did one night at my house, the result a woodland version of abalone.

The Muppet mushroom is on the top of my list of undiscovered delicacies in our region and most of the temperate world except for Italy and China where a close relative is eaten with gusto. It’s eminently identifiable amongst its peers with a shaggy orange-carpeted cap, pores that stain green after handling, short fat off-center stem, and firmness. That said, a biologist from California confided to me the other day, “you cannot underestimate the foolishness of new mushroom hunters. “ So, be sure of your identification.

The Genus Albatrellus is considered a terrestrial Polypore, sporting pores (little holes) underneath the cap instead of gills (blades). Most Polypores grow on trees like a shelf, but Albatrellus grows on the ground. The other major terrestrial group with pores is Boletes, the family that includes Porcini. Those can be separated by their softer texture, central stem, and pores that peal from the cap.

A restaurant owner asked the other day if I thought he could do a menu based on wild ingredients. It would be difficult I told him, as foraging often requires precise timing, weather, and being in the right spot. The Muppet is a perfect example of this. It’s not a mushroom you go hunting for. It’s one that finds you on a hike. It’s magic, and why I started “Not Hunting Mushrooms” several years ago.  “Not Mushroom Hunting” entails walking in the woods with no expectation and then miraculously finding mushrooms if they present themselves. It’s far more enjoyable than actual mushroom hunting which is often anticlimactic.

The last time I saw a Muppet was on Mount Spokane. They also show up around Sullivan Lake and various spots throughout the Idaho panhandle.

A fascinating side note is phylogenetic research of fungi has shown many groups (genera) aren’t really a group at all, having evolved from different ancestors. Albatrellus is one of them. They share strong morphological features and growth habit and yet come from at least two totally different lineages of fungi, somehow converging on this distinct habit as a beneficial form of existence.  

To prepare, cut thinly and sauté at a medium temperature for 30 minutes or more. Add water if it starts to dry out. Stick to salt, oil, and maybe a little wine or sherry the first time cooking. Albatrellus has been shown to have unusually high levels of selenium, so take a break from Brazil nuts while munching on Muppets.

Identifying Attributes: Low growing firm mushroom with an off center stem, dull orange shaggy top that stains green and a sponge like undersurface.

Cautionary Points:  Beware of any mushroom with orange or red pores on the bottom.  Have your specimen checked by an expert the first time you collect it.

Culinary Attributes: Chewy in a delicious way. Subtle umami flavor. Can be kept fresh in the fridge for weeks.

Wine Pairings: Albarino or light bodied chardonnay.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

The Velvet Foot

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There aren’t many wild foods to collect in the dead of winter and virtually none that are fresh. The velvet foot, Flammulina velutipes, is a rare exception. From late fall to early spring this delicate looking but tough mushroom appears on deciduous trees. It can be wondrous to find, the only bit of life sprouting forth, often preserved for weeks in a state of frozen timelessness.

The cap is a burnt orange and viscid. The stem is wiry and dark velvet at the base. This mushroom you likely know but in a form so different it’s hard to believe it’s the same organism. If you’ve ever had thin white mushrooms in East Asian soup or wrapped in bacon, then you’ve eaten it. Named Enokitake by the Japanese, it’s grown in oxygen deprived darkness in jars where they’re squished together reaching to escape.  They are the 5^th most consumed fungi in the world and have been cultivated for well over a thousand years. The natural form, also called the Winter Mushroom, is more flavorful with a less stringy texture.

The velvet foot grows on dead sections of hardwood trees, in old wounds or the crotch of large limbs. Occasionally they appear to fruit from the ground on buried branches or stumps. You can also apparently grow Flammulina in space, as NASA experimented with in the 90’s during the D-2 Columbia mission. It worked, albeit in a catawampus manor, thus proving fungi’s upward growth is dependent on gravity. Flammulina velutipes is not difficult to cultivate but challenging in our region due to the dry climate.  However, there is a growing interest amongst the permaculture community to overcome that barrier. This fall our city arborist, Jeff Perry, successfully fruited shiitake outdoors on some oak logs, a momentous feat.

Correct identification is simple December through February, as anything else would be reduced to dark mush in the cold. In November and March caution should be exercised; there are numerous orange to brown mushrooms that grow on hardwood and some are deadly.  So, double check with an expert and take a spore print, which means cutting a cap off and leaving it gill side down overnight on paper covered by a protective dish. The next day it will have released a radiating cogwheel of spores on the paper. The color of this deposit is an identifying characteristic and fun exercise for all ages. In the case of the velvet foot, a white print separates it from the most toxic wood inhabiters, which have brown spores. When hunting clustered mushrooms, one can often “cheat” and find the color of the spores already fallen on the caps packed below.

You’ll rarely come across more than a single fruiting of velvet feet, a thrilling discovery but not good for filling the pantry or freezer. The magic of chancing upon wild mushrooms is an ancient pleasure and this charming fungus will surely elicit such a response.

Identifying Attributes: Fruits in clusters during the winter on dead hardwood. The orange viscid cap sits atop a durable dark-velvety-bottomed stem.  

Cautionary Points:  Taking a spore print is a good idea when getting to know mushrooms; in this case it’s critical. The dangerous species in similar habitat have brown spores, not white.  

Culinary Attributes: Cook whole due to the smaller size, maintaining the attractive shape. More refined in flavor than many earthy pungent varieties. Use in soups, as a garnish or in eggs.

Wine Pairings:  Any. This won’t be a large element of your dish.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Winter Chanterelle

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With winter, dormancy comes. Yet a few life forms find this an optimum time to spring forth. One underappreciated denizen of our late fall forest is the Winter Chanterelle also called Yellowfoot (Craterallus tubaeformis).  In flavor and texture this is not the Chanterelle you’re familiar with. The aroma has none of the apricot fruitiness and instead shows a tangy woodland duff.

When the first frosts arrive and many plants and fungi are reduced to decomposing mush, the Winter Chanterelle makes its appearance under a dusting of snow. It grows on heavily decayed logs and rich mossy forest floors. As a result it tends to be in middle aged to mature forests: state parks, unmolested private woods or areas moist enough to encourage fast growth after the forest has been thinned. It’s a symbiont of conifers, preferring Hemlock. Some research suggests, even when fraternizing with other species, Hemlock is always present. Well suited to cryogenics, once thawed after a long night of freezing, it begins busily pumping out spores until the next night’s freeze. If still a ghostly popsicle in daylight, it can be broken at the base and brought home frozen.

The diminutive Winter Chanterelle is easily recognized but a bit hard to pinpoint in description. Looking nothing like our common Chanterelle from above, they’re delicate in stature ranging in size from a pinkie finger to a small hand bell and supported by a well-defined irregular hollow yellow stem. The wavy cap ranges from dirty orange to a warm brown. They do share the characteristic blunt decurrent gills of the family and once picked this is the defining clue to its identity. To clarify, if you look on the underside, the spore bearing surface is more like steep branching ridges than distinct gills. 

As for holiday cuisine, the delicate flesh of Winter Chanterelle lends itself to soups, stuffings and sauces. They don’t hold up as a focal point but their herbal earthiness is gaining popularity in the west coast.

Identifying Attributes: Fruiting begins in November. Look for a slight physique, yellow stem, and ridge like gills. Have your specimen ID confirmed the first time you pick it.

Culinary Attributes: A warming mild fall flavor. If prepared whole, cook less than most mushrooms and you get the enjoyment of eating the entire being in one bite, an endorphin hit for the inner forager.

Poisonous Look-alikes: The False chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca) which grows on wood is easily avoided by its bright orange gills underneath opposed to light colored ridges of the Winter Chanterelle. Should you eat the False Chanterelle mistakenly, worst case scenario there are reports of nausea, but from my personal experience it just tastes like musty bitter cardboard.

Wine Pairings: Thanksgiving reds, i.e. Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cru Beaujolais, Nebbiolo.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

Bunchberries

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Finding and picking fruit is instinctively rewarding, even intoxicating. Like foraging for mushrooms or hunting for Easter eggs, collecting berries triggers our ancient endorphin dropper, which keeps dripping as you pluck the never-enough morsels from the plant. About 20 wild, edible berries are found in the Inland Northwest. Some are delicious such as thimbleberries. Many are bland, bitter, or pithy. A few inhabit the middle ground: fun to eat but not delectable. Among these is the bunchberry, Cornus canadensis. If you are expecting a juicy huckleberry, disappointment will follow, but change your perspective to that of a forager/survivalist and they are pretty darn good. The softly sweet flavor is alluring yet hard to pinpoint; the yellow flesh is mealy but with little crunchy seeds that add satisfying texture. The fruit is adored by myriad animals. As blogger Paghat points out, this is probably the reason the berries have also been called squirrel berries, pigeon berries, crowberries, grouse berries, and bear berries.

Bunchberries grow in patches from spreading rhizomes around moist, shady spots in mixed conifer forests. They are part of the dogwood genus, related to the shrubs that line our rivers and flowering trees adorning our yards, yet are a diminutive herbaceous plant just hovering inches over the duff. The flowers and leaves are similar in size and shape to their big relatives, some of whose fruit is also edible. Instead of growing tall, they have developed a trebuchet-like stamen that can shoot pollen into the air to be carried away by wind or embedded in passing insects. A 10,000 frames-per-second camera is required to catch the elastic launch.

Bunchberries are easily identified once familiar. The plant has a whirl of six leaves below four white bracts (leaves disguised as petals) around a small bouquet of miniscule white and green flowers. The berries start appearing in early summer and continue untill fall, depending on location — an important mast for migrating birds and hikers when other species have already passed. In addition to being eaten, the seeds can be collected and used to propagate in your garden.

Enjoy the scarlet berries as a trailside snack or garnish or mixed in jams and pies due to high pectin content. Dried, add them to trail mix. A couple years ago, Santé featured bunchberries at a wine dinner in demi-glace and to bespeckle the plates. The leaves are consumed fresh or cooked, fitting into my category of “dinosaur food,” i.e., leafy, wild, and bit fibery. Many tribes gathered the berries for food and numerous medicinal purposes with an emphasis on treating colds and pediatric applications including colic and bedwetting. Today they are largely overlooked except by a small number of curious foragers and hikers.

Identifying Attributes: Found in colonies low to the ground. Six pointed oval leaves with distinct veins form in a whirl, two of which are often bigger and opposing. When flowering it’s similar to a dogwood tree blossom.

Cautionary Points: This is a fairly distinctive plant, yet be sure of identification before eating, as you always should be.

Culinary Attributes: Soft and sweet with crunchy seeds, though lacking juiciness. Best eaten as a snack or dried but can be reduced in sauces and spreads or used as garnish. Pectin vehicle.

Leaf, Root, Fungi, Fruit

Kelly Chadwick

The Humble Puffball

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The Blackfeet said they were fallen stars. In Western ethno botanical literature, puffballs are referenced far more than other fungi. Nowadays people tend to overlook them, maybe because of the resemblance to softballs, golf balls, and volleyballs. Yet they are abundant, good to eat, high in protein, and when mature, fun to kick into explosions of spores — the only acceptable form of fungicide. A mushroom is the fruit of the “plant,” arising to disperse its spores. Most mushrooms produce spores on the underside of the cap on gills or tubes; with morels it’s along their pits and grooves. Gastromycetes, the Puffball family, produce spores on the inside, maturing into a mass of purple or brown, “puffing” out clouds of spores that are carried off by wind and water, animal and insect. Millions disseminate and in large varieties the numbers count in the trillions.

Puffballs have an affinity for disturbed and compacted environments, i.e., human habitat. You’ll find them in lawns, roads, sides of paths, and fields. They can be smaller than a pea or bigger than a soccer ball. A decade ago, I left home to run errands on a sunny spring day. Beside the walkway in the grass was a ping pong-sized puffball. When I returned several hours later, it had grown to the size of a basketball. I circled in disbelief, as normally they appear overnight in their determined size. Picking it up, the diminutive specimen was still there underneath. A friend had come by and placed the enormous puffball over the small one. Most inexplicably, it turned out he didn’t know the little guy was below when placing the venerable giant in the expanse of my yard.

All puffballs are edible if pure white inside. Once spores develop, the flesh first turns yellow and then various shades of dark, signifying they are no longer fresh. There are also two nefarious lookalikes. The poisonous (though not lethal) Scleroderma has a thick, leathery skin and dark interior. Potentially fatal Amanitas start as a little white egg before breaking free into a mushroom. This is why you cut all small puffballs in half. If your specimen is a cloaked Amanita, the embryonic appearance of a forming mushroom will be silhouetted within. I have run across these deceptively mingled together in our region.

Puffballs are the tofu of mushrooms — soft, simple, but with a bland,  appealing richness. Bread, fry, and bathe them in heavy sauces, unlike most mushrooms that are lost in traditional country recipes. The creamy texture also blends well with eggs and cheese, like feta or chevre. Larger species may be sliced and lightly fried, then frozen for future use as wraps. Dehydrated they can be powdered for an umami flavoring.

Along with being fun, yummy, and kickable, puffballs played an important role in the old west, where they were used by natives and later frontiersman as a styptic wound dressing and food. In Tibet, puffballs were traditionally made into ink after burning and preparing an emulsion. Desiccated fruiting bodies were worn by several cultures as a protective pendant. I’ll watch for your new necklace on the street.

   * Roundish, white, stemless balls of many sizes, some with ornamental features adorning the surface.