From: riburr@shentel.net   
      
   mimus wrote:   
   >   
   > I guess I should try to grab some mycoflora this Spring while I can . . . .   
   >   
   > Even though (I know this is blasphemous) I'm not much of a morel fan--   
   > they're pretty enough, and fun to hunt, but I like my eatin' mushrooms to   
   > have good meaty texture, and my favorites tend to be late Summer to Fall   
   > mycoflora, eg _Clitocybe nuda_ and _Coprinus comatus_, although the noble   
   > _Pleurotus ostreatus_ runs of course from late Fall to early Spring, any   
   > time it gets warm enough to fruit . . . .   
   >   
   > _Leucoagaricus naucina_ is a nice one, too, with unexceptionable flavor   
   > and texture, not to mention the rush you get with every bite, wondering if   
   > this is your last meal . . . .   
   >   
      
   I like black morels, Morchella elata, but they are lacking in the taste   
   department. (And, like all mushrooms good or bad, they excite me when I   
   stumble across them.)  But, the big yellow morels, M. esculenta, are   
   truly exceptional gourmet mushrooms, among the best I've tasted; meaty,   
   flavorful, hefty, all the things you want in a mushroom.   
      
   Blushers, Amanita rubescens, are *very* plentiful in the forest around   
   my home.  I find them in my yard.  These are big, meaty, tasty mushrooms   
   that I've been brave enough to eat a couple times.  (Just out of   
   caution, I don't allow the rest of my family to eat them.)  I continue   
   to "sample" them.  They must be cooked very well to deactivate   
   hemolysins.  It's more a summer mushroom.   
      
   There was a member of a.n.m in Europe who used to rave about blushers.   
   Unfortunately, Jaques d'Alltrades has disappeared from the group.  (Hope   
   it wasn't the blushers that caused his departure!)  He was the   
   perpetrator who gave me the idea to try blushers.   
      
   Laetiporus cincinnatus has a texture almost indistinguishable from   
   chicken.  I find it in late spring, and throughout the summer, sometimes   
   in great abundance.  What do you think of it?  Of course, all the ones   
   you mention are very good.  I don't find L. naucina very often, and have   
   only had it mixed in with other kinds of mushrooms.   
      
      
      
   --   
   I can tell your future just look what's in your hand...   
      
   - Robert Hunter   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)