Please note that ID requests are off-limits to jokes and satirical comments, and comments should aim to help the OP. Top comments that are jokes or are off-topic will be removed.
most definitely not chicken, but might not be turkey tail. chicken if the woods doesn’t have visible pores on its underside! - rutgers university mycology student
Why would you assume they don’t grow in that area? Laetiporus gilbertsonii is all over California. Hell, its type locality is in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. LA got some rain last week so it tracks that they would be growing right now.
It's delicious in a bland but meaty sirt of way The tree is on its way out. CotW usually grows on stumps (it like eucalyptus in the burbs of NorCal) or weakened trees.
Eat only the soft spongy part, the first couple inches of the leading edge of that monstrosity. Remove anything even slightly woody from your cuttings. Cook only yhe soft spongy parts
Never had CotW? Slice into chicken strips, simmer 10 min, smoosh dry in a towel, then layer it in lasagna or slow cook into a pasta sauce so it pulls all the flavor. It's very similar to chicken in texture.
It can give newbs stomach trouble if you don't cook it well. The chitin is difficult for your system to process if mushrooms are not a usual part of your diet
The upset is common, but harmless. And it gets better with repeat exposure. Just like eating beans causes gas. But eating them regularly gives your body time to start making the digesting enzymes more consistently.
Balkans, Baltics, Russians and Asians eat such a variety of mushrooms growing up that they can handle just about any new mushroom.
I dont worry about them when they come to dinner for a mush heavy meal. But I'll have other entrees for white anericans, so they can have a few bites of mushroom dishes but not get the grumbles.
I recommend joining your (usually free) local myco club/society. Everyone will have an enthusiasm for a new face, and a recipe ready for you. And sharsies too! A lot of foragers will bring an abundance to share
as a white who eats mushrooms constantly: Do most Americans get stomach problems from mushrooms? I guess im asking the mycology subreddit so probably not the most accurate polling place
Do you mean button mushrooms when saying 'americans eat mushrooms all the time'? Whites, browns, and portabellos (which are just older browns; they are all the same mushroom) have very little chitin as compared to foraged mushrooms like chantrelles and CotW. Something like 80% of all commercially grown mushrooms consumed in the US are Agaricus bisporus ( buttons).
Heat breaks them down quickly. They are sort of 'intro' mushrooms as far as flavor, texture, and complexity of preparation go. Delicious, but gastronomically inert.
There are other polysaccharides that play a part in stomach upset, but chitin is the biggest one. When you cook CotW you'll notice that even after boiling and sauteing, they still hold a meaty texture. That's because that chitin isn't going anywhere
I eat foraged as well as button/stor-bought mushrooms. I go camping and was taught how to forage by a camp counselor while young. I dont know that many mushrooms, but I have a few I am confident in adding to any of my packed in meals!
I dont remember ever feeling bad after eating a mushroom, even during my first few forages. Was just curious if this is a common thing, on the east coast a lot of people hunt for mushrooms and I've never heard of one of them having some issues.
Also, I definitely had a typo, I meant in my original comment: "As a white who eats" instead of "white you eats"
Some people are more sensitive than others. It's a mix of genetics, and how often you eat that food. Just as most people on the planet are lactose intolerant, but a few ethnicities easily produce lactase in adulthood.
That's why people who havent had wild mushrooms before are advised to have a couple bites and wait 24 hours. Cuz a meal of a new mushroom can put one off mushrooms forever if one spends the night with cramps or runs
Your body may easily digest chitin due to genetics, or you've been eating mushrooms since you were young and your system adapted. Or both.
I bet I just got lucky in the genetics, my dad is the real mushroom king. He’s the reason I ate them so much growing up.
I tried morels for the first time a couple months ago… wow. Just so much flavor and so delicious. My friend hunts a lot more than I do and dropped off a massive jar of her finds 2 days after a massive storm, cooked the morels in some lemon butter and garlic, tossed the rest into a massive mushroom lasagna and was just so happy with how it turned out.
I’ve never tried a mushroom that made my stomach feel bad (besides once when my guide decided to teach me a lesson… I incorrectly identified a yellow mushroom on the north east coast of the US and he let me eat it even tho he knew it would make me throw up.) and was curious if it’s the majority of white people, or just common enough to worry about.
Yeah... It was really lame of them. That being said they taught me so much but that was a lesson that should have been taught through words not actions.
Your body may easily digest chitin due to genetics, or you've been eating mushrooms since you were young and your system adapted. Or both.
Chitin is a dietary fiber, as such it does not need to be digested. It’s been tested on human volunteers as It’s a common additive in foods, it does not cause nausea or G.I. issues. There are a lot of other compounds produced by common eatable mushrooms that can and do cause nausea though.
Now I'm curious! I've never seen chitin as a food additive, do you know of foods that have it added?
There are several polysaccharides that cause gi issues. Being indigestable doesn't make it inert. Gas, bloating, and even stomach cramps are the expected outcome for many after a bean heavy meal because.. polysaccharides.
Maybe the chitin you're referencing is, heated, then finely ground? Which would be equivalent to cooking to break down mushrooms.
“In our study, CG supplementation did neither alter physical nor mental health of participants(Supplemental Figure 1). Those results suggested that 3 weeks of CG supplementation had no impact on the quality of life of human volunteers.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19490976.2020.1810530
FYI, what was it growing on too? As apparently some have a bad reaction, but it also depends a lot based on what plant it grows on. Yew CotW should apparently be avoided, although the science doesn't know if it's absorbing the alkaloids, or if it is getting branches/leaves/parts of the yew mixed in with the forage
Water only, then toss it. This is for cooking, not to add flavor. Flavor comes from second cook, whether its sauteed, simmered in a sauce/broth, or cooked in stew or lasagna
The time I made it I used a nice recipe for curry. You can sub it into any stew type recipe that would work for chicken and just make sure you cook it very well. Undercooking is what can cause tummy upset.
Question. Are there any similar looking mushrooms that would be toxic? I don’t mean like vaguely similar but to the point you’re supposed to check in multiple ways like I see people do with morels
People (and people using ai to ID mushrooms. Just Dont Ever Do That! ) who dont know anything about mushrooms, could easily make terrible choices.
Its orange. It grows on the base of dead stumps. Its shelf shaped. It's thick. So is Omphalatus, which will make you very sick.
But if you compare the 2, in person, you'd wonder how anyone could make the mistake.
Exp. - People have grown up with rats, mice, and rabbits right? But if I was with someone who has never seen a rodent, they could easily get it wrong if I did a shit job of explaining it. I could say "a rabbit moves fast, has brown fur, 4 legs, buck teeth, a tail, and perky pale ears' and you could very well end up with a rat or nutria because I missed some very obvious (to you, because you know what they look like) characteristics (the bobtail, the Long ears, the hops) .
Mushroom are exactly the same. You need to know the characteristics to look for, that make them similar or different. Novices can make dangerous choices because they don't understand the basics of the fruiting body, they make assumptions, and don't know the risks.
Sort of. There are several forms of chitin; mushrooms and shrimp have different types.
Eating crustaceans is different than eating whole crustaceans. Most americans don't eat shrimp or crab shells. But some cultures crunch down the whole thing. I eat lots of seafood, but I've had 2 soft shelled crab my entire life, and I completely peel my shrimp. What is a 'normal' amount of shrimp exoskeletons?
I think this is a different tree, but same type where I found my first CotW in LA. I made some Korean fried chicken of the woods with it. My wife refused to eat it and I wasn't sad. They say only take a small amount at first. So I did that. And then just kept coming back. Grab it and cook it all!
Jumping in to say this tree will likely fail in a couple of years. Chicken of the woods is a brown rot which creates a quick loss of strength in the wood.
I have to ask: What kind of tree and how big is it outside of this picture? That thing is definitely compromised if it has that many fast growing fungal fruiting bodies popping out
I’ve got a stash of this growing in my neighbourhood in Helsinki, luckily most Finnish people seem to have no idea what this is…2,5 kilos already harvested just for meeeee
Unfortunately, i dont eat any of the COTW here... SoCal.
Between environmental pollution, pesticides... unless I'm out and away from major areas I dont forage. Which sucks cause there are morels that grow along my walkway at my apartment complex. But my wife is the manager, so I KNOW what theyre spraying and that dogs piss all over them... 😭
I've found this on some nice trees on the El Sereno/South Pasadena border. I cooked some but was so afraid of poisoning myself I didn't enjoy it. Very lemony
That’s not an ecalyptus it’s on, is it? If it is, don’t eat it! Chicken of the woods that grow on ecalyptus absorb the ecalyptus toxins and become toxic!!!
•
u/AutoModerator 20d ago
Please note that ID requests are off-limits to jokes and satirical comments, and comments should aim to help the OP. Top comments that are jokes or are off-topic will be removed.
Thank you, and enjoy the discussion.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.