Picking & Preparing Edible Mushrooms

Picking mushrooms for the table is very different from collecting mushrooms for study, since the goal is to get mushrooms home in good condition for eating. This means you will want them to be as clean as possible. Trim away the base of the stem, and any dirt-covered parts of the mushroom you are picking for the table. It is amazing how one dirty mushroom, dropped into a basket of edibles, can spread its dirt to seemingly every other mushroom in the basket by the time you get home.

Pick only fresh mushrooms. If you are unsure about whether one is "still good to eat," my recommendation is to err on the side of caution and leave it in the woods. Food poisoning is a danger, even with "edible" mushrooms. Additionally, a decaying mushroom in your basket can spread its decay--its slime, or crumbled-up and bug-infested flesh--to the other mushrooms.

Be sure to inspect the stem of your mushroom thoroughly, looking for evidence of infestation on the part of those ever-present, tiny white worms. These creatures typically invade a mushroom from the stem, and then climb up into the cap; if there are tiny worm holes in the stem's cross-section, you will want to continue trimming away until you reach a portion of the mushroom the worms have not gotten to first. Strictly speaking, these creatures are not poisonous, and anyone who has eaten many wild mushrooms has probably consumed more than a few of them without knowing it. But they're disgusting, for some primordial reason, and most of us would rather trim them away (plus, the areas they have eaten are prone to faster decay).

You will want to use a basket, rather than something like a plastic bag, because the mushrooms should be well ventilated and dry. They can often "sweat" in a plastic bag, especially on warm summer days, producing a royal mess by the time you get home. And anyway, a basket is simply more convenient for collecting; take a look at the bottom illustration, where an umbrella had to be used to collect Meadow Mushrooms when there was no basket in the car.

Much has been made in recent years about using mesh bags to collect mushrooms. The theory is that carrying mushrooms around in mesh bags encourages the dispersal of their spores. While this is not, strictly speaking, untrue, it is not as though any other method of carrying mushrooms around (even keeping them in a sealed-up bag) keeps spores from "spreading." Truth be told, the mesh bag phenomenon has more to do with people feeling better about themselves than the mushrooms. For a detailed account of why this is the case, see Picking Morels: You Won't Hurt Them, in our Morels section.

Neither should you worry about damaging the mycelium of the mushroom you pick, or "ruining" your mushroom spot by picking all the mushrooms. Unless you're really a jerk, digging up huge holes or using a rake to destroy the substrate (in which case I doubt you're reading a page on picking mushrooms at MushroomExpert.Com), you're not going to damage mushrooms by picking them. The page linked above provides more information on this topic.

Hopefully, it will not take hours in a hot car before your mushrooms get home. The least durable edibles are the Shaggy Manes and other Coprinus species, which often turn to black goo by the time you're home. Mature boletes are not particularly durable; I try to pick buttons only when I'm collecting boletes for the table. Morels and Chanterelles are the most durable edibles, in my experience. Any mushroom that is naturally damp or slimy (say, the aptly-named Slippery Jack) is likely to decay more quickly.

At home, you should probably deal with your mushrooms right away, rather than letting them sit untended for hours. This means going through your collection to make sure everything still looks hunky-dory, and putting your mushrooms in a large bowl in the refrigerator. Be sure, however, that your refrigerator's settings are not so cold that the mushrooms will begin to freeze (they are, after all, 90-some percent water!). In northern and montane North America, you may be able to set your bowl on the porch or in the garage overnight, but I wouldn't try this in Mississippi in July. Remember, however, that other creatures in your neighborhood may like fresh mushrooms as much as--or more than--you do!

When you are ready to prepare the mushrooms, go through the entire collection again, trimming away "bad" parts. If you can avoid it, your mushrooms should not be washed (unless they are morels; see below). Use a soft brush to clean them, or, in a pinch, a paper towel. Blowing sharply on the gills of gilled mushrooms can get rid of a surprising amount of grit and sand that you didn't know was in there. Slice the mushrooms up for cooking and, before dumping them in the pot, shake them up, passing them from hand to hand in a final attempt to get rid of remaining dirt particles.

Morels should be washed just before cooking--and washing them will not affect their deliciousness. I slice smaller morels in half under running water, then drop the mushrooms in a bowl of water. Larger morels are prime candidates for slicing cross-wise, creating morel "rings" that are easily washed by immersion in water and draining.

If you are lucky enough to have picked more mushrooms than you can eat at one sitting, you will need to preserve them for later consumption. See our page on drying edible mushrooms for information on this topic.

Back 01.01.2008