Surf on Turf

This year, I decided to pick for the Puget Sound Mycological Society’s annual Mushroom Show and it was a great time. I woke up to meet my picking partner at 7AM, took a ferry there and met a spry retiree and off we went into the woods to look for mushrooms. Most of what we found were some very soggy Suillus and a few very old and very brittle Brevipes of the Russula variety but whil walking down a path lined with Russula’s we struck GOLD…well, er, orange? Behold! The Lobster Mushroom

Gorgeous isn’t it. See, you remember that mushroom I mentioned above, Russula Brevipes? Well, this is it…well, after a metamorphosis of sorts. See what happens is, Hypomyces Lactifluorum predates upon an R. Brevipes and replaces most of its DNA and then we get the infinitely more beautiful and more delicious LOBSTER MUSHROOM!. No, they don’t taste like lobster, but they do have that lovely color and a fantastic mushroomy flavor and solid firm but yielding texture.

Anyway, so while out hunting for and FINDING and preserving various specimens for the show, my partner and I kept coming upon Russula after Russula. Then we rounded a corner and it was like that scene in the Wizard of Oz with the Poppies. Just a mossy field punctuated with the brightest dots of red orange.

All in all we pulled a solid haul of mushrooms and we’ve been enjoying them with some homemade tagliatelle. I’m hoping to make a beef wellington out of the balance using the lobsters for my duxelle. It’s going to be a very tongue-in-cheek “surf” & turf. I’ll report back how it goes!

Happy mushroom hunting!