James – the Mushroom Magician
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
I would like to introduce you to James. He is by far one of the most Mercurial beings I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and his passion is mushrooms. I met James through some mutual friends when I stumbled upon his mycological secret and several weeks ago, I convinced him to take me along on a foraging adventure.
Via e-mail, we debated for some time when to go and where to go. The when was moreso to coincide our busy schedules while the where was dependent upon the mushrooms we were to go a-hunting for.
“Salt Point State Park is one of the very few State Parks that allows harvesting of wild native fungi. They give you a five-pound limit, though it is easy to pick eight times this in a single day. The habitat there varies as do the kinds of mushrooms that grow in them. It’s best known for it’s Porcini (Boletus edulis). The season right now is ripe with Hedgehogs (Hydnum repandum with its many variants), Black Trumpets (Craterellus cornucopioides), and Yellow Foot (Cantharellus infundibuliformis ]) which is quite plentiful compared to the other two. All of these mushrooms are used by most of the white table restaurants in the Bay Area.
There is also the East Bay ecosystems which are muddier and have less variety of edible fungi in greater quantities, though Golden Chantrelles are probably the most abundant. The problem is the park rangers here will issue tickets if they catch you with native fungi or collecting it. Who would miss 46 pounds of chantrelles collected off the hiking trails?”