Chicken of the woods...

So my wife and I like to go foraging in the woods and fields from time to time, in search of some tasty wild food for the table. This weekend she came back from walking the dog saying she's found some funky yellow bracket fungi. I thought it might have been chicken of the woods so we went out with guide book and camera in hand to check it out. To cut a long story short it turns out it was! As the name suggests it's an edible fungi with a taste and texture supposedly like chicken and is great in a curry or risotto according to our mushroom book. We harvested a small amount leaving the rest in tact and had "chicken" balti for dinner.

Here are a few shots from tree to plate.

It sure looks very good. Was it?

It wasn't half bad. I'd say the slightly tougher centre was more chickeny with the outside being more like an Oyster mushroom type texture. I'd definitely try it again. This was a very young specimen, if left a little longer it'd probably get better and then become too tough and inedible.

Apparently these things are a) delicious and b) big sellers at farmers' markets. My buddy got 23 of these suckers - by asking his parents' neighbours if he could harvest them from their cottage property - weighing between 28lbs and 62lbs and sold 22 of them for just under $19,000.

Let me repeat that... he sold 22 mushrooms.... for NINETEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I took htis quote off a fishng forum I'm on

Rodbender said:

Apparently these things are a) delicious and b) big sellers at farmers' markets. My buddy got 23 of these suckers - by asking his parents' neighbours if he could harvest them from their cottage property - weighing between 28lbs and 62lbs and sold 22 of them for just under $19,000.

Let me repeat that... he sold 22 mushrooms.... for NINETEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I took htis quote off a fishng forum I'm on

Click to expand...

Woah! I might try and find some more of these and find out if there's a market over here. That'd set me up with all the camera gear I'd need!