ChefsWild

How's this? Stuffed a doe backstrap and tenderloin, boned and rolled, with dried Agaricus campestris and some edulis clade boletes, roasted apples, sage and koji cured lardo. Soon is is good, so I'm looking for pics already in collections for the most part. But if you see anything, by all means! Thanks.

Southeastern US region please. I need a few more photos for an educational use project. Who's got some of these pics and is cool with them being used in an open source educational course? Mainly seeking lookalike species for the good edible ones. 1. Stinkhorns such as P. ravenelli in the "sneaky morel lookalike" stage with the gleba rubbed off? Could also use some Helvella and Gyromitra. 2. Pyncnoporus cinnibarinus? (I think they updated the name on that one recently) Hapalopilus nidulans also welcome. Stuff that looks like Fistulina hepatica and isn't that. 3. Hydnopolyporus species that are doing a good Sparassis imitation. 4. Climacodon and other resupinates doing a Hericium impression? Could also use some of the Hericium that aren't erinaceus. 5. Hygrocybe looking kinda like any of the Cantharellus. Also Hygrophoropsis aurantica. 6. Pleurocybella porrigens, Neolentinus doing a Pleurotus impression, Crepidotus, Phylloporus, Hoehenbuhelia etc, that can be mistaken for oysters of various sorts. 7. Thelephora and any of the corals that can do a decent impression of Hericium or Sparassis or anything else tasty on careless viewing. 8. Galerina, Gymnopilus, Gymnopus and Hypholoma that could be mistaken for Armillaria. Holler if you have anything you're cool with pitching in. Need general locality and how you'd like to be credited. Much thanks!

Harvesting, not so much - it's like picking apples from a tree. No direct effect on the tree. Compressing the soil in the patch with a lot of repeated stomping around the same spot, maybe?

Yo dawg I heard you like mushrooms so I put a mushroom on your mushroom.

Dave, the colors are light tan/brown pretty uniformly.

The slender stemmed one is definitely bitter,

Looks kind of Armillaria? Chapel Hill NC, predominately pine forest, on wood.

I wonder if the gilled one is a Russula? It certainly crumbled.

I see scabers on one of the boletes and the other looks a lot like some of the local Tylopilus species except that the stem is remarkably gracile. The gilled mushroom is a puzzler, though. Very thick puffy white flesh, almost bolete-like, and widely spaced gills. All in pine heavy woods in Raleigh NC.

Gills slightly brown staining. Under mixed pine and hardwoods in Raleigh NC. Taste was mild and pleasant. Odor was fishy. No milk and was crumbly.

Grassy lawn in Raleigh. Not eating these regardless; they are buggy, but curious.

Pics or it didn't happen! Or, you can send them all to me and I'll take the pictures for you. I'm just really nice and unselfish that way.

Mild taste, does not stain blue despite the appearance of slight bluing on one of the stems. Raleigh NC, mixed hardwoods and pine.

I've eaten Gerronema strombodes. They are good.

I believe the same exact mushroom, though I picked a good number. The gills browned within 12 hours in the fridge.

Was yummy sauteed quick and dirty in a cast iron skillet that I'd just fried some bacon in. Here's a pic for scale before they hit the pan.

Not disagreeable at all. They taste quite nice. As there are no poisonous lookalikes that meet all of the observed characteristics here (no staining, yummy odor/taste, definitely Agaricus), it's saute time.

Cut section:

Could be arvensis I guess? No yellow staining. No enlarged base. Gills darkening to chocolate brown then black on mature ones and after picking. Aroma is sweet, mushroomy, and had faint hints of maraschino cherry, anise and almond when very freshly picked. Meadow/lawn type habitat, Chapel Hill NC.

I like them okay. Not superb, but perfectly good for the table or dried. A bag full of these is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, to be sure.

Please do, I just put up a chanterelle cordial and a shaggy stalk + chanterelle liqueur.

I love love love bitter boletes for candying, bitters syrup and infused/tinctured bitters.

I'm not a chef so much as someone who brings chefs to the wild and vice versa, but thanks! Though nobody seems to complain much when I run a wild foods pop-up dinner, which I do mostly for wildlife charity. I can put some tastiness on the table. Herpetologist would be correct however. Primary specialty is with venomous species.

Good on you for not harming them. They are nearsighted and can be spooked easily, and likewise they enjoy nibbling on anything their senses tell them is warm, but they are really pretty nice snakes and calm down super quick in captivity or even after a few minutes of gentle handling (with proper safety equipment of course). To answer the question of whether they can bite underwater, the issue isn't so much whether they can as whether they will. In most cases they won't bite at all unless you are a right idiot and attack them first, or unless you actually step on the snake. I have gone in the water after them and simply waited when they ducked under the surface without a lot of concern that they were coming to bite me or whatnot. It's not their style. This said, had I stepped on one I'm sure it would have bitten defensively, whether this occurred underwater or on land. Cottonmouths are pretty heavy fish eaters; that's what 'piscivorus' means. Since fish are not inclined to hurl themselves out of water so that snakes can conveniently consume them, you can probably figure out that they are fully capable of pursuing and chomping on fish, frogs, crawdads, etc, underwater. They do seem a lot less likely to bite defensively in water - not that they are really bad about that on land either - but again I wouldn't advise grabbing or stepping on one regardless of the moisture level in your situation.

Cajun, that's a young Agkistrodon piscivorus. Cutie! They are really nice to work with.