It’s National Mushroom Hunting Day. I generally track mine down at the grocery store, farmer’s market, or local restaurants. I love mushrooms – roasted, sauteed, deep-fried, grilled, on pizza, burgers, pasta, toast, and eggs. But I draw the line at coffee. Give me your hot taeks on edible, or drinkable, fungi. Share your foraging stories or favorite cooking methods.
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Drinkable? I mean, we used to make tea with psilocybin……………….
…I seem to recall being told that was…not tasty?
Throw a couple of herbal tea bags in it, it’s fine. You’re usually drunk already anyway, so………………….
That I’d drink, or least would have back in the day. But mushroom coffee sound so unappealing.
My only mushrooming story was hunting them on a farm trying to avoid the farmer who supposedly would shoot at you if he caught you. It was right at sunset and they were hard to see but we got a pretty good haul. I kept feeling like we were being watched & finally looked up in a tree to see a Pueo, an all white Hawaiian owl. This was pre-psychadelic shroom taking which came later that night so I wasn’t imagining this. As for drinking mushrooms? No, no, no but supposedly drinking orange juice with them gives greater effects. I don’t think I needed help with that part as I was tripping pretty hard.
Please tell me you were stealing from Farmer Maggot! Was the owl blessing your activities or expressing disapproval?
Not sure but the owl sure did look judgemental!
I never went mushroom hunting because I don’t know what I’m doing and would likely kill myself. However, there was a forest behind the farm where I grew up and these two ladies would park their car on the street near our driveway and walk to the forest to go mushroom hunting. They kept returning so I guess they new what they were looking for.
The only way I’m drinking mushrooms is if someone serves cream of mushroom soup to me in a mug.
I agree – mushroom soup yes, mushroom coffee NO!
I’m just thinking of how every other episode of Midsomer Murders has someone killed by mushrooms.
@MegMegMcGee I’ve been meaning to watch that. Today would be a good day to start.
After spending too much time on, and eventually rage quitting the reddit “survival” sub (ha. None of those fuckers are going to survive leaving suburbia, if they can even navigate the steps to make it out of their mom’s basement…), just the acknowledgement that you don’t know how to recognize edible fungi likely puts you at well-above-average odds of surviving an unexpected overnighter in the wilderness.
I’m not still bitter or anything about getting downvoted over encouraging people to go out with a foraging/mushroom group/guide as opposed to trying to asking random weirdos on the internet if some random mushroom/plant they took a pic of is edible…
@lochaber Excellent advice. I only trust a few foragers and they are very experienced.
My only experience with drinkable mushrooms (other than mushroom soup) was a Chinese remedy that my little brother was forced to drink to supposedly cure him of asthma and eczema…it was pungent and ineffective.
I have had a few beers with mushrooms but none were too memorable. The one mentioned in this article from Breakside sounds interesting & they are one of my favorite breweries so has promise…
https://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/mushroom-beers/
@Loveshaq Hmmm, I can almost see it with beer. The musty, earthy flavor of mushrooms could work.
The mushroom powder used in coffee are supposedly medicinal too. Your comment affirms my skepticism.
No mushroom drinking here, but we did score some morels during a hike a little over a week ago.
Nice! I’ve been the lucky recipient of other people’s foraging on occasion.
I hunt for mushrooms by rooting around in my food and flicking them into the trash.
I was waiting for the inevitable mushroom hate, lol.
How did nobody comment on yeast as far as drinkable fungi goes?
Like, that’s super important – beer, wine, everything else ethanol related…
Because yeast is a bacterium, not a fungus.
Apologies if I’m the first person to break this to you, but while yeast are microscopic and (generally?) unicellular, they are fungi, not bacterium…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast
For what it’s worth, a while back, I was present in (and arguably active…) in an organic chemistry class where the students had to convince the professor that the yeast that produced beer/alcohol were a fungus, so I guess it’s not an uncommon misclassification?
I’ve actually had several of Four Sigmatic’s mushroom coffee drinks and they’re quite tasty, not least because they doctor up the blends to the point they’re like latte cocktails and you cannot detect mushroom flavours.
https://us.foursigmatic.com/products/mushroom-coffee
On the flip side, a number of the key ingredients can wreak havoc on many people’s digestive tracts, so beware the tasty drink might have some afterthoughts.
That’s good information to have before trying it.