I don’t trust most mushrooms.
Strike that. I should say, I don’t trust my skill at
identifying the edible varieties.
Shaggy manes are an exception
to that. They have a distinctive bullet shape
and shaggy look that makes them unmistakable.
Their single imposter, the inky cap mushroom, lacks the shaggy look and
grows in tight clusters. Fortunately, even
the imposter is edible, though it may not mix well with alcohol.
Shaggy manes appear in both the
spring and fall—especially following decent rain events. And they grow almost everywhere, including in
poor soils. At one time, the landfill
where my hometown of East Helena, Montana, buried its trash supported a huge
shaggy mushroom population each season.
Shaggy manes self-destruct and
turn to ink in short order. If you see newly
emerged shaggy manes and want to eat them, you need to harvest them immediately
and cook them as soon as possible.
Yesterday, while flouncing
about down at the lakeshore, Desiree and I found a couple fresh shaggy manes in
the grass. Desiree harvested the
largest one (pictured below) and plans on trying it this morning.
Shaggy Mane Mushroom
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