Harvesting wild mushrooms is definitely something we want to do! The first year we lived here, we had a guy do some tree work for us. He and his family were into hunting mushrooms – and he brought us a bag full of golden chanterelles and were they awesome! I sauteed them and they tasted so earthy and meaty. Oh, man, I want some more right now. 
So I’m really excited to tell you about a book, “A Visual Guide to Harvesting Mushrooms“. I flipped through it the other day when at Localvore in Sutherlin, Oregon. The author, Leota “Rose” McKenzie, is a Sutherlin resident. I haven’t had the opportunity to meet her in person, but we have corresponded by email. Her book focuses on the most common varieties of mushrooms in Douglas County, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, but she also includes general information for beginning mushroomers all over – including a simple wash technique and basic safety guidelines. She cautions that this book shouldn’t replace a field guide – rather, it is a general guide to harvesting and help with identifying common mushrooms.
She covers the proper tools required, washing technique, and harvesting helps. In fact, the first few pages are available for viewing online at Amazon.com and those pages will tell you much about the helpfulness of the book. But what is not shown online are the pages of beautiful full-color photographs of mushrooms of Douglas County, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
The following description is provided on Amazon.com:
Nature enthusiasts, campers, hunters, wild edible foragers any one can enjoy this book. This is a great book with beautiful, full color illustrations that can guide any one through the harvesting of wild edible mushrooms. It provides a cleaning technique and simple visual recognition of the most commonly collected and marketed wild mushrooms from the Pacific Northwest. It includes actual photographs of mushrooms in their natural habitats and discussion pages with helpful climate, temperatures and geographic locations. A helpful hints book stuffed with local geographic time tables and lots of “what to look for” clues. This book was created to help the newest of harvesters to harvest those wild mushrooms that they love to eat but have no idea when and where to look for them. The mushrooms included are the most commonly harvested mushrooms from within Douglas County, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest some of these varieties are the Golden Chanterelle, Black Trumpet, Hedge Hogs, Blue Chanterelle, Oregon White Truffle and the Matsutake.
What I like is the fact that she says she accomplishes most of her mushrooming – collecting many baskets – within ten feet of her car! I always thought mushrooming would require getting farther off the beaten track. Leota and her husband, David, have been mushroom harvesters and buyers for many years. I look forward to learning more from her – and I look forward to beginning some foraging of our own soon!
This book is available at Amazon.com, Localvore (in Sutherlin, Oregon) and Books Gallery (in Sutherlin, Oregon). If you buy via Localvore, Leota has included some recipes with the book. Leota also told me that she hopes to do some education classes via Localvore in the near future. For you Douglas County folks, I’ll be sure to keep you posted when I hear about anything happening!
What about you? Have you done any mushrooming? Are you interested? What are your favorite wild mushrooms?
This post is part of Fight Back Fridays! at FoodRenegade.
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Take the guesswork out of what to fix, what to buy and what to prepare. This week:
Class materials compiled into easy downloads: 
A topic I’m definitely interested in.
You know I love foraging for wild things (ie: free food) and for the fact that they have so much more flavor than grocery store food. I absolutely LOVE mushrooms and would love to learn how to identify them in the wild. Any idea how to go about finding a field guide? I think the edible wild mushrooms are picked here early in the spring, before the buds are out, but I’m not sure.
I’m curious if you researched wild berries of Oregon and what is available?
.-= Marg´s last blog post… Picking saskatoons =-.
Marg – I thought you might like this topic! I don’t have a mushroom field guide that I can recommend. But I will email Leota and ask – although she may very well see this post and answer you here. But without having an answer from her readily available yet, where I would start is at amazon.com and look for mushroom field guides and start reading reviews. The field guide would tell you when mushroom season starts. In Leota’s book, she talks about how each mushroom has its season. I don’t think there are many mushrooms in summer due to less moisture, but there are at other times of the year.
And I haven’t done any research on wild berries in Oregon, either.
I’m no help on that! All I know is that blackberries are all over the place here in Douglas County!
Since you are interested in wild mushrooms, you will enjoy the post I just did about us finding edible mushrooms in our woods!
http://www.heaveninthehome.com/2009/06/29/edible-wild-mushrooms/
.-= Laryssa @ Heaven In The Home´s last blog post… We Are A Family Of Five! =-.
Funny coincidence with the names, here…!
I also have All that the Rain Promises and More, which is a charming, quirky Northwest mushroom guide. I don’t have it in my store yet. I got it from fungiperfecti.com, a mushroom company also run by charming, quirky people. I have another guide, too, but can’t for the life of me remember the name of it, perhaps because it was more utilitarian and less fun. In any case, I recommend mushrooming with TWO guides for safety when you are new at it, and photos are much better than drawings!
Leota (Rose) has produced a book that is not cheap (retails for $35), but her photos are large, in color and show multiple views of the same kind of mushroom. Most guides only have one or two photos or drawings and you are left wondering while you are out harvesting if you have a good mushroom or not. I have given my mother many virtual heart attacks harvesting bolettes with only a bad picture for a guide.
I used to go shrooming at my house in Virginia. The season there is the opposite of ours in the Pacific Northwest… late summer is a good time to start there, whereas November’s a little more like it here. Rose says you can find mushrooms year round in Douglas County, but when it’s dry and crunchy inland, the only options are coastal mushrooms, which can be hard to clean of sand.
I haven’t been seriously shrooming since I moved here, which is silly, because I have seen fried chicken, chicken of the woods and chantarelles where I live. However, the bolettes grow all around the edges of my garden and so I just pop ‘em out of the ground and take them in, clean them and fry them in butter. They sort of look like bread; they are swollen and browned on top. But if you have any question at all if that’s what you have, better to buy Rose’s book becaue it shows five or more pictures of them.
I bought some Lions Mane mushrooms on a nice day last fall at the Newport Farmers Market but by the time I got them home, they were shrivelling and no where near as good. My mom says the fellow I bought them from has good products, so it may be that they sat outside (in little brown bags, looking like contraband) for a couple hours before I bought them and then sat in my truck for three more hours before I got home. That’s a shame because Lions Mane simply sauteed in butter are WONDERFUL. I would love to find them locally, preferably for free!
Thank you all so very much for your warm and wonderful review and reception. The idea of my book is to take it with you and actually see what it (a mushroom type) really looks like. I too, have many, many mushy books, purchased over the years. I decided to just answer a few questions with my book. Questions like, Where do they grow? When can I find the Boletes? Do Matsi’s grow here? What does a Fried Chicken look like? Some common questions from everyday people. I hope, I conveyed the answers to those questions for everyone. My book is exspensive because it is what’s called self published and I am sorry I could not afford to purchase the buy back packat for advertising, however, my book is well worth the $30 plus dollars. Oh, and there are over 100 pictures of actually harvested Mushrooms in the book. I am trying to compile information and photos on Berries in Douglas County. There are dozens of wild edible varieties here to harvest. Currants, Elder Berries (late Sept.), Huckle berries (Red & Blue), Oregon Grape, Salal, and of course the vines-Himalayan Black berries, Red & Black Caps, Goose, Salmon, & Straw berrie. If my email is not posted thru the site- you can catch up to me on Twitter, Facebook, and myspace (mushroomwhisperer) or around town. Thanks again, everyone.
Wardeh, You are amazing! I should hire yu as my “PR” Lady and pay yu with Berries and Mushrooms! Love your Review. Thank you, and look very forward to meeting in person. By the way, Chanterelle’s are just starting at the Coast and Lobsters are not a pltiful but they are there too. Thanks again.
Okay, obviously “texting” has affected my spelling. The words “you” & “plentiful” were what I was looking for. lol
Leota – Thanks for chiming in and sharing your expertise. I would glad take any mushrooms or berries you want to pass my direction.
No, really, I think your book is wonderful and I’d like to see you succeed, so I’m really happy if others will read this review and give your book a try.
I haven’t done any wild mushroom foraging but I would love to do this. I got interested in it when I read Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She talks about morel hunting on her farm.
I haven’t looked into this enough to start doing it but this book looks like a great start. We are on the east coast though so I may need a book that focuses on this region.
Thanks so much,
SArah