Boletus chippewaensis

Looking like the summer of 2021 could be a very good time for Maritime mushrooms.

Here we will view a few Boletus chippewaensis which are one of our best edible mushrooms.

The stems can be quite long on these mushroom which is great as this is an excellent part of the mushroom to eat.

These mushrooms standout in the forest so you can see them from a good distance.

A mature one which you may want to approach as buttons may be in the surrounding area.

Caps can be light to reddish brown.

I most wanted to share the mushrooms, but without the forest floor and trees I couldn’t tell much so take an extra moment to check them out. These mushrooms show up best in this type of layout.

Moss, conifers, poplar, birch with plenty of breathing room between the trees, a pleasant place to be.

We’re Back

It has been over 18 months since my last post on wild foods so yes we are back as I found the sight of these peeled Japanese Knotweed shoots to pleasant not to share with you.

In my view and even with my phone camera pics these shoots appear quite appealing even unpeeled. My first experience with J K shoots goes back about 40 years with a not so tasty pie which inspired many years of little use of this abundantly available spring edible. Today peeled, blanched and then soaked and later on cooked with 3 apples into an applesauce it has suddenly become a wonderful food as well as a photogenic spring shoot, a big thank you from me has to go out to those experimential folks sharing info on wild foods at this time. Japanese Knotweed is probably also quite nutritious as well with at least some resveratrol but not near as much as it has in this plants fall roots. if you shied away from J K shoots it may be time to give them another try says eye. 🦉

MARI(matsutake)TIME 3

Last post on Matsutake for 2018 is on the not so obvious Maritime matsutake appearing in wet areas sometimes with what seems young spread out conifers or possibly older stunted trees with abundant acidic loving shrubs.

You have to wander around and look close to find these ones. Oh, I see some light sandy brown in there.

Now bend down.

It takes someone who is not in much of rush to enjoy gathering these lovely Maritime Matsutake in knee to waist high shrubby areas, great fun for some of us though. Ciao

Tragopogon, Grass Rooting

During July I seen a large area of Tragopogon pratensis which seemed suitable for gathering this plant if I can recall the location for next spring, this post should help:) Often this plant grows very well along roads and railways, the type of places you (do not) want to gather food from. Occasionally T prantensis will also grow in grassy areas along brooks & rivers which can provide for some safe gatherings depending on what is upstream. So since I’m right here right now actually searching for another plant of course lets see if I can find some T pratensis plants amongst the grasses.

If you look at the green plant leaves to the left of the center of the photo you will see the most dominant plant here which is a grass I can’t identify and to the right of center is a Tragopogon with very similar looking leaves though they are more numerous and you can circle them with your hand and follow them back to root.

Usually my main edible interest in this plant are the early spring growth of stems and leaves, today well into November with the temperature near 0 C the greens are less appealing to me so I think it will be time to dig a little deeper and see what the late fall roots look like. The more numerous and larger leaves should point to the largest roots.

These roots were a lot easier to remove from the soil than I expected. Many of these roots the size of a medium carrot. The leaves still are edible and nutritious but are most tender towards the root.

These are one of the better tasting wild roots, as good as most garden vegetables. Like Jerusalem Artichoke and Burdock, Tragopogon pratensis is a member of the Asteraceae family and it also contains inulin in its roots so many may get windy after a good feed of them. Tragopogon pratensis roots boiled for 5 to 7 minutes are very tender, I added butter and a little lemon juice, salt and pepper, very good.

Fall Foraging and Photos

November in New Brunswick Canada can present you with some interesting wild food opportunities. Recently I revisited this field I gathered a variety of wild greens in during June and returned here for tubers and the hope of maybe some winter annual greens. In the photo’s bottom left corner we see a wild radish plant and the rest of the photo features mostly the brown remains of the mint family member Stachys palustris with a few straight beggars tick stems which I attempted to slalom around to avoid getting coated in seeds.

Here we see what was just under the soil below the old Stachys palustris plants. Some fine tubers you can eat fresh or cooked or dried and powdered into flour.

 

Of the greens available it was by far the wild radish stealing the show.

Most the new fall growth were on old mature blown down stems from summer. These greens were in suitable shape for cooking and drying with even a few plants with new pods and flower buds. Good chance if a warm spell appears in Dec there will be plenty of other mustard family members available for Maritime foragers to gather:)

Chokecherries

Trying a few new food things with chokecherries which I’ll probably post on down the road. Here is a phone photo trailer for you which seems to nicely capture a forager’s view of this abundant wild Maritime fruit. Ciao

 

 

 

 

Lowbush Blueberries

Super short post on a Maritime wild food favorite, low bush blueberries which tend to grow well in sandy acidic soils, usually dry ones.

Often around this time of the year wild mushrooms are my focus, but with a very dry July in my neck of the woods blueberries came through as a nice alternative which will be much appreciated this winter in many ways. Blueberries are great in desserts and are surprisingly attractive and tasty good in soups, casseroles, etc.

I claimed it was a super short post so I’ll end with the above photo which stirred the stream of thoughts of these lucky blueberries enjoying some lovely shade under a canopy of pleasant scented sweet fern, at a restful blueberry resort right here in New Brunswick 🙂

Umbrella polypore

Short post on my first gathering of Polyporus umbellatus which is a rare and quite unusual wild edible mushroom here the Maritime provinces. This Umbrella polypore is the size of a loaf of bread and has a scent of toffee. Umbrella polypore is also aka the medicinal mushroom Zhu Ling which makes use of the large woody sclerotia underground the fruiting mushroom. These sclerotia left as is should produce fruiting mushrooms for decades, so I shall return next year to check this out. Zhu Ling is best known for its results for folks with lung cancer and has a long history of usage in China. As for  tastiness of this above ground mushroom, I’ll add a comment later on after I fry some up. This mushroom was found near birch, poplar and young beech so keep your eyes open my fellow Maritime foragers.

Maritime Lobster Mushrooms

Lobster Mushrooms are out in good numbers in the Maritimes now, so check out my catch of the day.

This one is rather smooth with not much sign of gill ridges.

I find most of my Lobster Mushroom usually near mature Eastern White Pine and an area with mixed woods with large Poplar trees can be prime spots to have a look also.

These 3 photos show the weight divisions Lobster Mushrooms often fall into with the 1st photo 1/4 lb, 2nd 1/2 lb and last one weighed 1lb.

The closest Lobster Mushrooms appears slightly over mature but look around as often there will be plenty of good ones near by, the white powder visible on the gill surface is not mold it is actually spores so this is not a sign the mushroom is not still good to eat. Two things to check concerning whether a Lobster Mushroom is still in good shape for eating is a light to slightly darker orange color, nothing in the red to purple range and when you squeeze the stem at ground level it is very firm. If there are soft spots or brown colored areas somewhere on the mushroom above the firm stem just cut them out and you should still have plenty of choice mushroom left.

Here is what was in a 25 foot area of the above photo.

Back home with a basketful of goodies which will soon be processed into a yummy Lobster Mushroom marinate thanks to Hank Shaw’s website honest-food.net › 2016 › July › 18

Ciao

Good Green Tidings

A view of a sluice with the tide on the rise, I’ll walk along the edge of the salt marsh till the waters sway me dykeward.

Here is the plant I’d like to show you today, Ligusticum scoticum (Scotch Lovage). They are recently making somewhat of a comeback as a food of interest.

These plants seem to like it midway up these small dykes, the salt water will almost reach them by the looks of things today.

Another photo from where the view of the sluice took place, here the sluice only appears to be gone and soon it will only appear to back, it is amazing what can appear to happen when you pick a few greens by the shore. ciao