Fungi Forage & Feast

This year we had a very rainy and amazing fungi season and a hurricane during the event! The folks that showed up REALLY like fungi. We started the morning off with a hike on the Red Island Trail located on the north shore of the Cabot Trail. Brendon Smith and myself led this walk where we identified tons of mushrooms, talked about ethical foraging, and shared the right amount of warnings about how not all mushrooms are edible, not all edible are delicious, and some fungi can be seriously dangerous.

After our hike we came into a warm St. Ann’s Bay Church, many of us changed into dry clothes and flocked to the hot turkey tail and the chaga tea. Chef Fiona Genevieve was waiting for us with a variety of amazing snacks which she walked through with us one by one, teaching us about cooking mushrooms, preservation methods, and which varieties she likes to have stocked in her kitchen.

With Chef Fiona we tried…

  • Pickled ‘Hen of the Woods’ & Blueberry Bruschetta

  • Koren-style Cripsy Pancakes with Oyster Mushroom & Beets

  • Shiitake Veloute topped with locally-caught Snow Crab

  • Candied Chanterelles on top of Cinnamon Cap Mushroom & Vanilla Ice Cream

I provided the Bread n Butter Bar…

  • We had compound butters: Chanterelle Butter, Garlic Scape Butter, Rose & Vanilla Honey Butter

  • Freshly baked Herbed Focaccia & GF Buckwheat Crepes

  • Chanterelle, Yellow foot & Black Trumpet Garlic Confit

  • Sauteed Morel Mushrooms

FUNGI CANDIES

Making candy from jelly baby fungi has been on my list for a long time, and I finally tried it for this event! I used mostly Ochre Jelly Club (Leotia lubrica), and a few Green Jelly Baby (Leotia viscosa) for this recipe. They were cooked for a few minutes in a lime and ginger syrup, left to marinate, and then were dehydrated for many hours covered in the sweet, spicy syrup.

I think these turned out delicious, as the mushrooms themselves have basically no flavour and not much nutritional value, either.

During a rainy summer like we had, you can find these around hardwood habitats all over the place.

As we do every year, we had some great prizes and giveaways. We had 4x Happy Caps grow kits (Shiitake, Lions Mane, Oysters), we had freshly foraged winter chanterelles, some dehydrated maitake, and a jar of Carrot & Carraway spread from Chef Fiona. If you want to know more about her, her catering and events, or her food, check out her website.

Jay Rawding