Isn't that what they say about all kinds of exotic meats? Snake. Crocodile. Ostrich. Kangaroo. Never are they compared to beef or pork, always chicken.
Well, it turns out the animal world isn't the only chicken mimic: the wonderful world of fungi does a great job, too, when it comes to the Sulfur (Shelf) Mushroom, aka, the much vaunted Chicken Mushroom (
Laetiporus sulphureus). This is a time of year you might find the Chicken Mushroom fruiting in the Concord woods.
About 25 years ago, I joined an acquaintance in a yearly ritual, the Boston Myocological Club's jaunt to the autumn woods to hunt mushrooms. That time it was held in Concord's Town Forest, which was considered prime mushroom territory. We gathered before the hunt, and prior to setting out someone handed around a warm foil packet of SOMETHING, urging each of us to take a piece and pass it along. It exuded an amazing earthy fragrance speaking of woods decaying leaves and primordial mystery, and I bit into the most delicious piece of "chicken" I had ever tasted -- wonderfully infused with garlic, firm, meaty, and full of nuanced flavors I couldn't even begin to guess at. It took me a while to catch on to what everyone else seemed to already know: this was a piece of cooked Chicken Mushroom.
Last year, a friend found some Chicken Mushroom, and he kindly shared it with us. I sauteed and stewed it with garlic (I rarely forget how something tasted even long ago!), and garden vegetables. This wild mushroom is one of a tiny handful I will eat, given how distinctive it is and that there is no other species that it can be confused with. If you're going to eat wild mushrooms, this is an excellent place to start. And end!
Earlier this week, this generous person left me a voicemail.
"I'm out in [location suppressed] and I'm standing in front of this huge oak tree. Chicken Mushrooms are all over it! You've never seen anything like it! Call me back, I'm on my cellphone."
I didn't get the message for several hours. We drove right over to view the harvest: about 12 pounds of gorgeous, bright pumpkin-orange-topped fans of his harvest with gorgeous sulfur-yellow undersides. Much smaller (but more plentiful) in size than last year's catch, their fragrance was heady and enticing.
Wearing headlamps, we then went to the closest entry point of the woods where many more of these beauties would be found. We walked about a half-mile, up hills, down valleys, along sections of muddy trail, slip-sliding on fallen acorns. We were followed by the eerie voice of a night bird moaning in the woods close by -- first on the right, then left, then right again. Luckily, it didn't seem to consider our fungus collection efforts to be threatening, and we were able to gather our loot.
How gorgeous these mushrooms were! They stretched from the base of this dying tree to over 6', and were around almost the entire trunk. We could see evidence that we had missed an earlier fruit flush. That great harvest had gone uncollected, and had decayed to an ash-like appearance mixed in with the forest floor's litter. The total bounty from this tree from both collecting sessions that evening was at least 20 pounds.
Afraid that these perfect specimens collected in their prime would start to decay quickly (they were damp when collected), I brought home my share and started cooking them even though it was close to midnight. Chunks from the base of the fans that we sliced off the tree I quickly sauteed in olive oil (with garlic!) and refrigerated, and then made this morning into a vegetable stew (tomatoes, onions, basil, celery leaf and parsley... all from the garden) (these are not shown in photo at right, but were equivalent in volume to about two-thirds of the front platter's contents). I will freeze five or six portions and we will have the rest tonight with pasta.
The medium-sized fans (platter in the front in the photo here), I quickly sauteed, too, and froze for later consumption. The largest fans (platter in the rear) I poached for three minutes, cooled and also froze. It turns out the poaching water created a beautiful stock, which I used to make a white bean soup, cooking away as I write this.
The house smells of that earthy, unforgettable fragrance -- garlic mixed with something ineffable -- that I first encountered all those years ago in the Town Forest where I first found out that the Chicken Mushroom does, indeed, taste just like chicken.
Notes: If you wish to do your own Chicken/Sulfur Mushroom collecting, please read and heed the warning on the page here (
http://americanmushrooms.com/edibles4.htm) about never eating them if they're growing on coniferous trees.
There are several varieties of Chicken Mushroom. See some beautiful photos and a good array of their forms at the bottom of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaetiporusPhotos: Top two courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Bottom, courtesy the author.
How many miles of Concord's hair has Pauline Arms cut, curled and colored over the past 40 years? Surely, something on the order of the distance to the moon and back. At the end of October, Pauline, owner of Russo's Hair Design on Thoreau Street, will be retiring. Hanging up her scissors. Shelving her curlers. Retiring her color brush. Taking no more trips to that moon!
