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Skulls turn out to be giant fungi in Wellesley
By adamg on Mon, 09/07/2015 - 10:53am
The Swellesley Report shows us some freaky fungi, being visited by a dog named Truffle.
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Comments
They look like giant
They look like giant puffballs to me, but IANAM (I am not a mycologist).
The genus name of the giant puffball, Calvatia, is cognate with "Calvary" and alludes to their resemblance to skulls.
agreed - giant puffballs
You can easily tell if they're Calvatia gigantea by cutting them open - puffballs are just pure white inside like they were made of styrofoam, with no silloette of a cap or gills or other markings inside.
They're quite edible when young (ie when the insides are white, not yellow or brown) - and taste like extremely mild cheese or tofu. They get soggy if rinsed, so to clean just brush them or peel/trim off the outsides. They can be prepared just like tofu - baked, stir-fried, broiled, steamed, simmered in soups, etc.
Once the spores start to form and the insides color, they're no good to eat (meaning they'll cause stomach upset like eating any other rotten vegetable would).
Sometimes other mushrooms can look like much smaller versions of this, but if you cut those open, they aren't just pure foamy white inside like the giant puffball. It's the only mushroom that grows this big and pure white, so it's a nice choice edible.
Agreed. They grew in Mom's yard and she cooked them
The rule about gills and other structures anywhere means it's not a puffball... and to avoid it.
These are so neat, even though I can't eat mushrooms.
I wonder how many people had to die
in a given culture to learn what mushrooms are edible and which are deadly?
Depends
which culture. Stone-age screw heads? A lot. A culture with a printing press? Not that many.
Just so-so
for eating. I either sauté pieces of puffball or coat with a light batter and fry them. When you see giant puffballs on the ground you know it's also time for the other two edibles in New England; Hen of the Woods (grifflora) and Sulphur Shelf (laeitoporus) which are amazingly good. In peak seasons I'll pull 30 pounds of sulphur shelf out of the woods...about a third gets frozen, then rest is an ongoing fall feast.
I recall one outing near my home on which I scored a trifecta, landing all three in the space of an hour! Sulphurs, hens, and puffballs are pretty much unmistakable and don't resemble any toxic variety. As some commenters pointed out, for smallish puffs be sure that you slice them in half to look for any sort of 'bud' or early gills, since poisonous amanitas have an early stage that looks like a small puffball.
One year I found puffball about the size of a large beachball on an embankment near the Waban T stop. We ate about half, stuck the other half under a tree at Walnut and Comm Ave, and posted a note on Craigslist. The post was removed for being inappropriate (really? on will-sever-my-finger-for-tickets Craigslist?) but not before someone swooped down on the mushroom. It helped that the tree we put the puffball under was also hosting a sulphur shelf!
Do be careful about harvesting mushrooms on lawns or right-of-ways, as they are good scavengers of heavy metals and other toxins. If you find a bunch of something yummy on your neighbor's lawn, be sure to ask if they recently treated the area.
What happens when you smash one
pics please