Mushrooming hunting hasn't been easy this season

SULTAN — Rob Nowowiejski had seen better days hunting for chanterelles.

The Sultan man had been out several times in recent weeks looking for the prized mushrooms in the Sultan River basin, and pickings had been sparse.

One day recently, he and his mother, Helena, and his wife, Tess, had little more than a handful between them.

When they get them, though, it’s worth it.

They saute them in butter, half-and-half and a little flour, then pour the mixture over mashed potatoes.

“It’s heaven,” Nowowiejski said.

That’s just one of the reasons that people tromp through the woods or across parks to look for little growing things that can easily be confused with other little growing things that can kill them.

“It’s like a treasure hunt,” said Marian Maxwell, president of the Puget Sound Mycological Society in Seattle. “You’re looking and looking and not without a considerable amount of effort, but it is rewarding.”

It’s also increasing in popularity, at least in some corners. The Puget Sound Mycological Society now has 850 members and is growing, Maxwell said.

“There’s been a whole kind of revisiting of sustainability and getting back to the land,” along with an interest in fresh food, she said. People interested in mushrooming are also often nature lovers, Maxwell said.

The Snohomish County Mycological Society, based in Everett, has about 200 members, said Igor Malcevski, who writes the newsletter for the group.

In his 30 years with the group, it’s fluctuated between about 80 and 230 members, he said.

“We’re more of a social club,” said Malcevski, 66.

Some people become fascinated with finding and identifying the different types of fungi, while some are more interested in the culinary aspects of a few or more mushrooms, he said. And some are interested in all of it.

“I’m usually looking for something to put on the table and share with friends,” said Malcevski. “If I get into a glut of something, I’ll pass it around to other people.”

Wild mushrooms taste and smell different from those bought in the store, Maxwell said. Prince mushrooms can smell like almonds, the matsutake like red hots, she said.

“They are really good in cooking,” Maxwell said.

Wild mushrooms in most cases can’t be cultivated.

“They form a symbiotic relationship with the tree or plant they grow with,” Maxwell said.

The wildness aspect makes identification all the more important. Many edible mushrooms look almost exactly like others that can kill.

A Bellevue woman recently spent a week and a half in the hospital after eating a death cap, nearly suffering liver failure, Maxwell pointed out. The death cap looks quite similar to the edible paddy straw mushroom.

In addition to initial appearance, mushrooms can be identified by the gills on the underside of the cap, by bruising patterns and by spore droppings.

“You never go by just one characteristic,” said Dave Pehling, an assistant at the Washington State University Cooperative Extension office at McCollum Park in south Everett.

“You want to make sure you have the darn thing exactly identified before you use it,” he said. “Most of them are not deadly poisonous but it only takes one.”

Information is available from books and videos but the best way to learn is to go out with members of a local club who know what they’re doing, experts said.

The monthly meetings of both the Snohomish County and Puget Sound mycological societies are open to the public.

Short of that, society members can identify mushrooms for people who pick them. People often e-mail photos to the Snohomish County group, Malcevski said, but identifying mushrooms from photos is more difficult than it might sound, he said. In many cases the group tries to find a member close by to help the inquirer identify the fungi in person.

The Puget Sound group has a weekly free clinic during mushroom season, which in the fall extends until temperatures dip into the freezing range, at the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington. There, people may bring their mushrooms for identification, Maxwell said.

“We’d rather bring them into us and have them ID’d than choose something that would make them sick,” she said.

Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.

Mushrooming

The Snohomish County Mycological Society meets at 7:30 p.m. the second Wednesday of each month (except January, July and August) at the Baker Community Center, 1401 Poplar St., Everett. For more information visit www.scmsfungi.org, write scms-membership@scmsfungi.org or call 425-317-9411.

The Puget Sound Mycological Society has free mushroom identification clinics from 4 to 7 p.m. Mondays in the spring and fall mushroom seasons at the Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle. The group holds its meetings at 7:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at the same location. For more information visit www.psms.org/, e-mail president@psms.org or call 206-522-6031.