All week, we’re resurfacing the most well-liked posts printed on Gardenista this yr. If this story is new to you, take pleasure in! And in the event you’ve already learn this earlier than, we hope you’ll prefer it simply as a lot as the primary time round.
The primary time I noticed a rooster of the woods, the huge mushroom was frilling the bottom of a dying oak tree. It was a sizzling summer season day in Cape City. I had by no means seen one and was nervous about diving in. I emailed footage to a foraging good friend in the US. She known as her good friend Sam Thayer, the wild meals writer. Identification confirmed. Again we went and picked up some orange-and-white followers. That night time, as my husband, my father, and I feasted, my mom abstained, with a glance on her face that mentioned plainly: Any person has to drive you to hospital.
Rooster of the woods is a massively rewarding mushroom to search out and eat. Right here’s find out how to determine this simple mushroom for newbies and what to make with it after you have carried your treasure residence.
Pictures by Marie Viljoen.
13 years and lots of “chickens” later, the nervousness I felt then appears foolish. What else might it have been? Rooster of the woods has no poisonous lookalikes. This electric-hued mushroom is unmistakeable. However a self-preserving seam of concern runs by means of all of us when confronted with a potential (final?) supper of untamed mushrooms.
Chickens are ubiquitous throughout North America and different temperate components of the world. Saprobic and parasitic tree pathogens, they fruit from mycelium in dying or lifeless hardwoods. They’re polypores, with tiny, sponge-like pores beneath their caps, not gills.
The Laetiporus genus to which chickens belong continues to be being parsed at a genetic degree by researchers, which has resulted in title modifications, reclassifications, and the differentiation of subspecies. Collectively, they’re edible.
Laetiporus sulphureus has vivid yellow pores beneath its cap, so it’s generally generally known as sulfur shelf (though I consider it as yellow rooster). The mushroom’s fan-like layers develop on upright or fallen tree trunks or giant branches, however not on the bottom. They trigger coronary heart rot in a tree.
L. cincinnatus (white rooster) has white pores, and causes butt or root rot on oaks. Not like its shelving yellow cousin, it might appear to develop on the bottom away from a tree, however is definitely fruiting from the roots.
Whereas they’re usually related to late summer season and early fall, chickens additionally fruit in late spring and early summer season, in a heat spell after rain.
