Missing Mycological Magic
About 2 years ago when I moved into my little spot of Heaven, it was around this time of year. I had been working so much that I hadn't really had the time to walk about and get to know the forest around me. I was out for all of 3 minutes when I came across a gold mine of Puffball mush rooms. It looked like little moons on the surface of Earth. I went wild with excitement, and with no exaggeration there were about 20 of them. The biggest one was bigger than a basket ball. Check out the photo below.
A fter about 2 weeks of eating puffballs I had severe mycological overload and started to give them away to friends and family. Most people had never heard of Puffball mushrooms before and their reactions were priceless. By the time we found her royal highness up above I gave it to Natalie to cook for the folks at her co-op. She is an alchemist in the kitchen and created A stuffed mushroom. She hollowed it out and made stuffing with the insides and filled the cavity with the stuffing and baked it. I'll see if I can get the recipe from her.
The way to gather Puffballs is to cut them from the ground with a knife and leave the root in the ground. I went out the other day to see if there were any around and with the lack of rain I am guessing that there just isn't enough moisture for them to "puff" out.
This really has been one of the dryest summers I have ever experienced, and I am feeling for all of those trees downtown who have to fight lack of water, pollution, and the heat of concrete mass all around them.
This Saturday night I am going to a solstice gathering and I know that in our drumming circle we are going to be asking for the Fall rains to come. We need it.
On a final note last year I was hiking near Singhampton, Ontario when I came across these two varieties of mushrooms. Does any one know which varieties they are? and if they are edible?
Are big puffballs like that
Are big puffballs like that always edible, or are there other varieties that look similar but aren't? My parents get them in their wooded yard - they're like volleyballs. I never thought they might be edible. What do they taste like? do you just cut them up like a melon?
-C
Puffballs
Puffballs grow to varying sizes, from just a few inches across to this massive one in the photograph. There tend to be little bugs that live in the outer skin so I cut the skin away with a sharp knife about half an inch deep. Some times they are pristine and you don't need to remove the skin. What do they taste like? Well take a typical white mushroom and intensify that by 1,000. If you break it open and smell it, that is exactly how it tastes. Some people actually feel the puff ball in their stomachs. It's not unpleasant it's just unusual, like my body is saying "Hey what's that?" "This is very fresh!"
In the past I have cooked them just like I would any other mushroom, sometimes with worchester sauce and butter with salt and poured them over a steak, or in a pasta sauce. The one thing to know about Puff balls is that they don't do well the next day. So if you are preparing it, it's best to eat it the day that you cook it. The pungency just gets to be too much for me. I never thought to eat them raw, but sauteed with onions and butter, you can't go wrong.