Mushies!!!

We went mushroom picking today up in the mountains looking for chanterelles and boletes (porcinis), of which we found a few. What we really scored on was the Matsutakes!! We didn’t expect to find many of these and we were pleasantly surprised! Matsutakes are really great for soups and hold up really well when you dry them, unlike many other wild mushrooms. Matsutakes are really sought after in the mushroom world and their smell is unmistakably sweet and cinnamon-y. You can smell them just walking through the forest, if your nose knows what to look for! I LOVE them.

Matsutakes grow extremely well in the NW, but they are most prized in Japan. Their name comes from Japanese for pine (matsu) mushroom (take), as they grow under pine trees in Japan. They grow in Pine forests on our coasts too, but in the mountains they prefer rhodies, manzanita, and firs.   Since Japanese forests are not plentiful enough for all the matsutake demand, they are often imported from the pacific NW.

Several years ago, people here could export them for $500/pound! The young (most prized) matsutakes could sell for $100 for one mushroom! That’s crazy! Unfortunately, the matsutake hunters here became so competitive with the outrageous pricing that many people were carrying guns to prevent their harvests from being stolen. Not something that I want to be a part of. The price of the matsutakes has come down quite a bit now ($15-40/pound).

Another unfortunate part of matsutake hunting is that the most valuable mushrooms (the young) have to be harvested before they even pop out of the ground. So, it is common for the hunters to rake the entire forest floor damaging the delicate mycelium. Even today, we found lots of bare forest floor where people had raked the ground and did not replace it. When we harvest matsutakes we don’t discriminate against the older ones that are already popping out of the ground. If we find some under the duff, we always replace the duff and try not to disturb it too much to protect the precious mycelium.

We found our limit of 15 each and were very happy with our harvest, along with our chanterelles and boletes! I can smell them in the food dryer right now. mmmmm….

The best part of the whole trip was being with the maples as they turn all shades of reds and yellows.  The smell of rain makes me happy too.   Fall is truly my favorite season (as if there was any doubt after reading this post….I could go on and on and on and on about fall……………………………).