EPILOGUE: Enjoying lessons learned

After the project described in this blog, we finally got in touch with the local mycological society and it was more that we dreamed it could be. Great folk, and a superb exhibit of mushrooms. There is nothing to beat actually handling edible and other mushrooms, in terms of identification. Pictures can be dangerous. But smelling, feeling and examining the species folks bring in allows one to do a better job identifying in the field. In this picture are a couple mushrooms we purchased (for pocket change) as well as several we collected on a recommended hike AFTER the exhibit. In other words, had I had the chance to go to this meeting of the Snohomish Mycological Society before embarking on my project, I would have been much more successful at tracking down edible species. In the bottom picture is my son with an Amarita Muscarina, which some think is a "magic mushroom." In fact, it is basically toxic and just messes with the mind in the way that Raid sprayed on a cigarette might(I heard this was done with fatal effects in Cambodia a few years ago). But they are cool looking. On the edible end, we became confident in the difference between poisonous boletes and the botellus russellii, which I ate both raw and on top of some pizza. I love it. Raw, it had a nice almost citrus flavor. I also got my first taste of a lobster mushroom and a white chanterelle. Those of you who think mushrooms in the store are boring or lack nutritional value need to get to a market where you can sample such things. If you do, you will find more motivation to learn about mushroom foraging. So I'll consider this one of my favorite byproducts of the experiment documented below.