Happy October, food & foraging friends!

I can’t believe it’s halfway through October already — a fun month for foraging. I’ve been stumbling on lots of small but sweet wild persimmons (pro tip: do not eat them until they’ve fallen to the ground all mushy, unless you want a serious case of cottonmouth), and you can’t swing a cat these days (and you really shouldn’t) without hitting some honey mushrooms, prolific and easily spotted as they almost always grow in bouquets.

I’ve recently returned from trips out west and down south, where I found a couple of curiously captivating mushrooms. First, in Mississippi, the ash tree bolete, a Halloweeny looking mushroom that actually has a symbiotic relationship with a type of aphid that destroys ash trees. The mushroom’s mycelium surrounds and protects the aphid; in exchange the ash tree-wrecking aphid feeds the fungus nutrients. The mushroom is edible, and is a dyer (fungus used by textile artists to dye yarn crazy colors!)

Another cool find, which I’m calling “chicken of the beach,” I discovered on the beach in Santa Cruz, Calif., on a dead eucalyptus log. Laetiporius gilbertsonii turns out to be the West Coast equivalent of the chicken of the woods we all know and love here on the East Coast, Laetiporius sulphureus. It was only in 2001 that gilbertsonii was discovered to be distinct from the east coast species. So much we are still figuring out about fungus!

Top/left: me cheesing with a big slice of old “chicken of the beach” in Santa Cruz (for more awkward shots of me and mushies, follow me on Instagram). Bottom/right: If a wild persimmon doesn’t look old and squishy, it’s probably not ripe.

Meanwhile, I’m apparently the only one not finding hen of the woods right now. Luckily, my friends at ANXO Cidery where I’m leading my foraging & cider tasting tours this month have a delectable new pizza with the mushroom otherwise known as maitake, with pickled Asian pears, cider-caramelized onions and goat cheese. One of my fellow MAW members also does an amazing hen jerky that strangely reminds me of the salty licorice you get in Northern Europe. My food column last month also featured forager chef Alan Bergo’s fab hen steaks recipe, which I can vouch being a daggone good use of hen.

For some more fall kitchen inspo, check out my October column in Natural Awakenings on savory approaches to cooking with fall fruits. There’s more to autumn than pumpkin spice, amirite?

Wildly yours,

April