HOME CLEANING & PREPARING
As soon as you get home, clean your mushrooms again. Cut off any bad spots and throw away any mushrooms that have deteriorated since you were in the woods. I prefer to use a small soft brush to finish cleaning the mushrooms. A little brush here, and a little brush there, and they are ready. Sometimes a little water has to be used in the cleaning process, but this is not the preferred method. Mushrooms may become soggy when soaked in water. Water can also hasten deterioration. Some people won’t even pick mushrooms if they are wet from the rain.
When home cleaning, always take another close look at each individual one to be sure you have picked a good, edible one and not a poisonous one. Some mushrooms have hollow stalks and occasionally critters will crawl inside. The solution is to always cut the mushrooms in half from the top to the bottom of the stipe (stalk). All button mushrooms (still closed or not entirely opened) should be cut in half or sliced, so you can see what the inside looks like – you might see the egg shape of a poisonous Amanita when you thought you had a field mushroom! Cutting will enable you to see the gill color, which will aid in identification.
REFRIGERATION
As soon as you are done home cleaning your mushrooms, freeze, dry or marinate them. If you are going to use them fresh, put them into the refrigerator as soon as possible. Place them in clean paper or wax paper bags – never in plastic bags, as that will hasten the spoiling process. Depending on the variety, many mushrooms will keep in the refrigerator for three to four days. If your mushrooms are not refrigerated they will deteriorate at a much quicker pace; the microscopic bugs that are in them will soon develop and ruin the entire lot almost overnight. I repeat, just as you would not eat a rotting piece of meat, don’t eat a rotting mushroom.
FREEZING
We try to freeze a variety of mushrooms in the time of plenty so that we can enjoy them throughout the year. Start by cutting up your mushrooms as if you were going to use them fresh. Place them in a pan and cook them in butter, making sure they are completely cooked. Then let them cool slightly so your fingers don’t get burned, and place the mushrooms and their liquid into re-sealable freezer bags. The size of the bag and the amount of mushrooms in each should be what you would use for one meal. Squeeze all the air out and seal the bags shut, then (this is very important) label the bags with the date that you froze them along with the quantity and type of mushroom, and put them into the freezer. Most frozen mushrooms look somewhat similar, and it is hard or impossible to tell what variety is in a bag unless it has been labeled. This is particularly true when they are cooked and you have a number of different types of mushrooms frozen. Try to keep all frozen mushrooms together so they don’t become lost in the freezer. Throw them away after six months.
To defrost: Set them out in your sink for a couple of hours, or defrost in the microwave by using its auto-defrost feature. Once thawed, add them to your recipe.
DRYING
First, double-check the identity of your mushrooms, then re-inspect them to make sure only fresh mushrooms are used. Cut away any bad spots and worm holes. In summer, mushrooms such as Boletes get worms, which bore from the base of the stem and work upwards. Just start cutting away the base of the stem until you no longer see any holes; if they continue into the cap you will have to discard the mushroom.
How To Dry
One technique is to string the mushrooms with fishing line, then tie the ends of the string to trees, or hang the string full of mushrooms in a hot attic to dry. You could also tie the strings up in front of an oscillating fan. Some people like to dry them in the oven on low heat. The method that I recommend, however, is using a food dehydrator. The mushrooms must be sliced ¼" thick or less in order for them to dry properly. Put them close together on the dehydrator trays, but leave a little space for the air to circulate.
It usually takes about eight hours to dry mushrooms; after four hours in the dehydrator they usually shrink to about 50% of their original size. The mushrooms that are on the bottom shelf or closer to the fan and heat source of the dehydrator dry more quickly than the ones on the top shelf. To speed up the drying process, about halfway through combine the mushrooms on the two trays closest to the heat source and use that empty tray to add any mushrooms not yet dried. Place that tray on top of the stack, then continue to combine the rest of the trays in this manner.
When dry, the mushrooms should be quickly sealed in airtight jars or zipper bags and stored in a dark place so the light won’t fade them and leach out their vitamins and minerals. Make sure to label each bag with the date, quantity and type of mushroom. You may want to put your dehydrator outdoors in a protected area, such as on a covered porch. (Be aware that some people are allergic to mushroom spores or do not like the odor.)
To re-hydrate
Soak dried mushrooms in hot water or milk for 20 minutes or so, until they become soft. Put them in a bowl and cover them with the liquid. Once they are reconstituted, you can pour off the liquid or use it to make soup, since it has absorbed some of the mushrooms’ flavor (use the liquid as you would water). Use the re-hydrated mushrooms as you would use fresh mushrooms: 2 ounces dried mushrooms = about 16 ounces fresh mushrooms.
MARINATING
When I marinate I usually use an empty canning jar, or similar jar that I have saved. Then I cut up and cook my mushrooms and add my spices and put everything in the jar. Depending on the ingredients, marinated mushrooms usually keep a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.
CANNING
Mushrooms can be canned but I don’t recommend it, because many people have become ill after eating improperly canned foods, especially ones that are not acidic. If you are willing to give it a try, contact your local county extension office first. They will have instructions and a list of approved methods.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO COOK
First of all, remember to save a few of your uncooked mushrooms just in case you become sick. That will make it much easier to identify what you ate. They should be uncooked and not prepared in any way, and refrigerated to be kept fresh. When the hospital calls, it is very difficult and often impossible to identify the mushrooms someone has eaten by the stomach contents. Also remember that some mushrooms such as the Alcohol Inky can make you sick if any alcoholic beverages are drunk before or after eating them, so be careful.
As I cautioned in the Introduction, if this is the first time you are eating a species, try only a small quantity, since you may be allergic to them even though they are edible And do not eat more than one type of mushroom at a time; otherwise, you would not know which one you are allergic to if you have an allergic reaction – or in the case of poisoning, it would be too difficult to find out which of the many species that you ate could be the cause of the poisoning.
COOKING MUSHROOMS
As a general rule, all mushrooms should be cooked before eating. If you are a beginner and want to try wild mushrooms and don’t know any for sure yet, get some at the grocery store. Today, many of the bigger stores sell button mushrooms and some other cultivated or wild mushrooms such as Shitake, Oyster mushrooms, Wood Ear, Black Trumpets, Morels, Boletes, and Chanterelles – often available both fresh and dried. Other mushrooms such as the Paddy Straw Mushroom and Enoki can be found canned in the Oriental foods section of the store.
If you desire to purchase even more varieties of wild mushrooms than your store carries, contact Fungi Perfecti (see Resources page at the back of the book). They sell over 20 types of mushroom kits that you can use to grow your own “‘shrooms,” and they’ll send you a nice little catalog. Their kits really do work; I’ve tried several of them.
If you cook your mushrooms in a pan with butter as we often do, occasionally too much liquid will develop in the bottom of your pan (mushrooms are over 90% water). Just remove some of the water so your mushrooms won’t become too soggy.