[UPDATE: Check out new info page HERE and video HERE]
There is an idea among some mushroom foragers that one should not take the smaller specimens because they will be bigger for the next person. But what if there isn’t likely to be a next person in your ‘secret’ deep corner of the forest? And if there is no rain on the way and they won’t be getting much bigger anyway? With these justifications added to few options other than going home empty handed, I came home recently with a modest haul of button versions of saffron milk cap mushrooms (Lactarius deliciosus).
Where I went wrong to start with was assuming that heavy coastal rain in the week before would have carried through more than it did to my inland destination of Belanglo State Forest (the right information was just the internet away and I didn’t check). Instead, they had had light showers that hadn’t soaked in enough to prompt much of a fruiting frenzy among the fungal mycelia in the soil and pine roots below.
It was a good learning experience though, and here is the tip from it – drainage lines and south and east facing gentle slopes where moisture holds better for the forming fungal fruiting bodies will still yield a few when only minimal rain has been through; and fire trail verges where drains get carved by graders into the forest edges achieve the same effect of concentrating limited water and bringing forth some mushrooms. Truth be told, there was one more option of getting out and covering far more forest that I did, but my fellow forager wasn’t quite up for that – largely on account of being three years old.
The end result is that I would definitely back the harvesting of small saffron milk caps during drier times or when rainfall has been only quite recent. While I suspect an Iron Chef jury would, I can’t stand up and say the flavour was that different, but my feeling is that the win for buttons would really be on texture and being able to integrate better with other ingredients as a tight package that shows off the colour and exoticness of the saffron while being able to be enjoyed separately but not as the exclusive focus of the dish (they are good enough to do it, but not good enough to warrant it every time). Other thoughts:
- They don’t get huge anyway when it is dry; the few that were giving fruiting a go weren’t getting much over 10cm diameter (compared with >20cm in good wet conditions) without being hard, dry, insect-chomped and no good for the basket anyway;
- As buttons, saffron milk caps store and keep a lot better than as big open caps. These are mushrooms that bruise easily to an unappealing green, and while the gills are still a little tucked under, they will refrigerate well and unblemished for twice the time (maybe 6 days instead of 3 at good quality, more as simply edible); while they freeze (once slightly cooked) and dehydrate well enough, fresh remains best;
- You don’t actually gain as much weight with cap diameter as you would think – a 5cm dense little saffron milk cap is not far off the same amount of mushroom as a 10cm one, just with more consumer-friendly packaging (probably why buttons and larger flat commercial mushrooms are often similarly priced despite being the same fungus).
We remain blessed in Sydney to have an under-appreciated mushroom bonanza every autumn an hour or two from town; such that it is more a function of rainfall than foraging pressure that determines our chances of success. Perhaps when the crowds catch on, picking buttons might be rude, but for now, it is a delicacy that the resource can bear and that foragers can freely savour.
Note: This was written a couple of weeks ago; if you go the forests over a week following big autumn rains it would be a very different (and better) story in terms of getting big mushrooms (and probably more slippery jacks (Suillus luteus). As it happens, that means right now!
I love mushrooms. Your photos are so good, I could almost taste them. Do you get chanterelles there? They fruit in the autumn in the Pacific Northwest.
Thanks Solarbeez. No chanterelles here, mostly just these saffron milk caps and slippery jacks in the pine plantations plus field mushrooms out in the paddocks. Lucky to have them in a way. New Zealand in comparison has missed out, even though they have a lot of perfect pine plantations – people are trying to get them established there though.
I have seen them and passed them by all too often, you have convinced me to give them a go. I will read a little more, but is there anything that I could mistake for them?
Hi Eddy, there’s nothing over here that looks too similar, but it is introduced from over there where there may be more similar relatives. Here, anglo-Aussies like me have been way behind some Euro-Aussies in getting onto pine forest mushrooms – especially the Poles! Good advice here would be to tag along with one of the many Poles who get into it – so it’s got to be a reasonable option for you… Especially as I suspect that there are lot more other edibles on offer to learn about.
Hello,
I’m the Survival editor at Before It’s News. Our site is a People Powered
news platform with over 4,000,000 visits a month and growing fast.
We would be honored if we could republish the rss feed of The Forager’s Year
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If you are interested in syndicating with us, please contact me at:
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Thank You
Hi Sean, no thanks, I’m not comfortable with: a) survivalism as a pessimistic (man the baricades and look after yourself) appropriation of the entirely positive engagement of foraging; or b) the overall editorial policy of your website from what I can tell; or c) writing for a platform beyond a simple individual blog. Thank you for the offer though. Oliver
P.s. I gave a feeling that you haven’t read my post on survivalism (https://foragersyear.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/on-survivalism/) prior to your offer…
We have a small pine plantation in the Kalateenee State Forest (near Kempsey). During the big autumn dry there was nothing, but since the rain I’ve been spotting field mushies. So it’s off to the pines today!
I just found some of those saffron milk cup mushrooms in my front yard near Sydney this morning and was wondering if they can be mistaken with any other mushroom? We have a Pine tree and they grow…about 10 of them …underneath.
Sorry this reply is too late to be useful… There are times when a fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) can sometimes take on some of the upturned shape and even be a little orangish on top and have less distinct spots than the classic ‘toadstool’ look. Once you know them both you’d never get it wrong, but you would want to know because they grow in the same places and the fly agaric is poisonous. Chances are you were right, and if so I hope you got to enjoy them…