A box of different types of coral mushrooms from the region. PJ Heusted // AS Review
By PJ Heusted
The Pacific Northwest’s damp forest floors and myriad of decomposing trees make the landscape ideal for a variety of wild mushrooms to sprout up amongst the moss and ferns. As a result, people take to the forests to forage for edible wild mushrooms.
The Northwest Mushroomers Association both serves as a place for people to find resources about foraging and puts on an annual Wild Mushroom Show. This year the event was at Bellingham’s Bloedel Donovan Park on Sunday, Oct. 20.
Attendees waited in line to see an extensive collection of wild mushrooms from the region, taste some of these mushrooms and visit the informational booths set up around the room.
“[Learning about mushrooms] has been slow. Mushrooms are sneaky and tricky but slowly and surely I’m befriending them and learning more and more,” Terri Wilde, a volunteer at the event, said.
The volunteers gave attendees a chance to learn about the mushrooms on display, instead of just admiring them. Booths about medicinal mushrooms, species that are poisonous but look edible, identification and more stayed open for the duration of the event.
The event highlighted the variety of mushroom species that exist outside in the community and surrounding forests.
Lee Gulyas, an English professor at Western, visited the event after becoming increasingly interested in cooking with mushrooms and learning about the wild species in the area.
“The displays about the kind of mushrooms arranged, with the family grouping and labels, was great to see,” Gulyas said. “There were some that look like jellyfish and there were some that looked liked coral. They were beautiful and translucent.”
The variety in the appearance of local mushrooms came as a surprise to Western Student Tavish Hansen who started learning about mushrooms after seeing them while hiking.
“At some point I realized that oyster [mushrooms] are pretty easy to identify, taste really good and are all over the place in the spring, so I just started collecting those whenever I found them,” Hansen said.
Despite many of the mushroom species in the region being edible, the volunteers at the Mushroom Show highly recommend making sure you are confident in your identification skills before foraging alone.
There are a number of resources available in the form of mushroom identification workshops, books, local experts and online information for those interested in exploring the forest for edible mushrooms.
“I don’t think anything replaces going out with a knowledgeable person into real nature at various times of the year and seeing what’s out there and really paying attention while you’re out there,” Wilde said.
However, for those prepared to forage, there is the possibility to collect pounds of food. Hansen shared that he has been able to collect roughly five pounds of mushrooms on hikes in Washington.
The ability to forage one’s own food motivates many in the mushroom community to go out and find food in the wild.
“It’s still just great to think that you can go, not very far, and forage and find a nutritional and delicious food source. That still amazes me,” Gulyas said.
The Pacific Northwest’s damp forest floors and myriad of decomposing trees make the landscape ideal for a variety of wild mushrooms to sprout up amongst the moss and ferns. As a result, people take to the forests to forage for edible wild mushrooms.
The Northwest Mushroomers Association both serves as a place for people to find resources about foraging and puts on an annual Wild Mushroom Show. This year the event was at Bellingham’s Bloedel Donovan Park on Sunday, October 20.
Attendees waited in line to see an extensive collection of wild mushrooms from the region, taste some of these mushrooms and visit the informational booths set up around the room.
“[Learning about mushrooms] has been slow. Mushrooms are sneaky and tricky but slowly and surely I’m befriending them and learning more and more,” Terri Wilde, a volunteer at the event, said.
The volunteers gave attendees a chance to learn about the mushrooms on display, instead of just admiring them. Booths about medicinal mushrooms, species that are poisonous but look edible, identification and more stayed open for the duration of the event.
The event highlighted the variety of mushroom species that exist outside in the community and surrounding forests.
Lee Gulyas, an English professor at Western, visited the event after becoming increasingly interested in cooking with mushrooms and learning about the wild species in the area.
“The displays about the kind of mushrooms arranged, with the family grouping and labels, was great to see,” Gulyas said. “There were some that look like jellyfish and there were some that looked liked coral. They were beautiful and translucent.”
The variety in the appearance of local mushrooms came as a surprise to Western Student Tavish Hansen who started learning about mushrooms after seeing them while hiking.
“At some point I realized that oyster [mushrooms] are pretty easy to identify, taste really good and are all over the place in the spring, so I just started collecting those whenever I found them,” Hansen said.
Despite many of the mushroom species in the region being edible, the volunteers at the Mushroom Show highly recommend making sure you are confident in your identification skills before foraging alone.
There are a number of resources available in the form of mushroom identification workshops, books, local experts and online information for those interested in exploring the forest for edible mushrooms.
“I don’t think anything replaces going out with a knowledgeable person into real nature at various times of the year and seeing what’s out there and really paying attention while you’re out there,” Wilde said.
However, for those prepared to forage, there is the possibility to collect pounds of food. Hansen shared that he has been able to collect roughly five pounds of mushrooms on hikes in Washington.
The ability to forage one’s own food motivates many in the mushroom community to go out and find food in the wild.
“It’s still just great to think that you can go, not very far, and forage and find a nutritional and delicious food source. That still amazes me,” Gulyas said.