General Meeting and Speaker, September 2021 - Phil Carpenter: Roundtable Discussion on Basics of Mushrooming

Future meetings may be held virtually, in person, or in a hybrid format allowing attendees the option of participating virtually through a live video stream.

After the business part of the meeting our own  Phil Carpenter, FFSC Founding Member and Science Advisor, will lead a discussion on the basics of mushrooming.

In Phil's own words:

This presentation is actually more of a discussion in that while I’ll be leading it, it is intended that people who feel they have something to contribute are welcome to 'chime in' in an orderly fashion. You see, this discussion is geared for those just getting interested in wild mushrooms.

We’ll start the presentation with the general topic, “getting started”. Included will be what you might need for equipment, books or other resources. Following that, we’ll talk about where to go and as important, where NOT to go, to collect. This will be a great spot to plan to add to the discussion. Now, once you’ve found a spot to forage, we’ll discuss the basics of collecting, both for those things you want to eat and for those things you need to identify before you plan to eat them.

Next, identification - a big topic. This may be your major hurdle for collecting and eating mushrooms. We’ll talk about classes, books and other resources for doing your own identification.

OK, you’ve got your mushrooms identified so now what? Processing, preparing and preservation. Many people have their favorite ways so I can envision a nice discussion here.

Lastly, I’ll introduce the topic of 'foraging etiquette'.

Photo: Arrhenia chlorocyanea cap. © Alex Heyman (CC0) (inaturalist.org, obs. 149000748)