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Sunday Morning on the Farm
Today began just like every other day. I got up, put on pants and a shirt, and went upstairs to grab a glass of juice. Then gathered up the carry sacks, which were loaded up with a jar of wash water, a washrag, a dry cloth, a stainless steel container, and a clean mason jar. Then I headed off to milk the goat.
Usually Kevin and I do this together. But he is gone for a few days, and will be back this afternoon. Usually he milks the goats, and I strip them out. He lets them in and out of the pen, and I get the feed ready and take care of the milk while he is putting the goats back in. We usually walk hand in hand from the house to the goat pen. A morning ritual that has been carried out for months.
Last week, there were two. Today there is one. The older goat died early last week. A combination of circumstances that her old body could no longer compensate for. We did all we could. But the choices weren’t all ours to make.
But this morning, I milked the goat alone. She was cooperative. Sometimes she isn’t. I milked her out, put the milk into the clean jar (we used to need more than one jar, but she is declining in production now). Then I put her back in her pen, stowed the feed bowl, and tossed hay in to the doe and the two younger kids that share the pen with her. I gathered up the equipment and stuck it back into the two bags that it goes in (made by my mother, for just this purpose), and headed back for the house.
The rag got rinsed and hung to dry (it gets laundered twice a week), and the dry cloth was also hung. The milk was strained into a clean jar, capped, and put in the fridge. This requires a complete rearranging of all the jars in the fridge – usually there are 3-4 jars of milk from the previous days, and the newest has to go at the back, oldest at the front. Then the milking container has to be rinsed, and the milk jar, and the strainer also.
Once these things are done, I am free to shower and dress for church. When we have chickens, rabbits, or other animals, the Sunday Morning chores are more. But for the moment, it is just the goat. Soon, it will also be quail, as we adjust our farming to our location, and to the ups and downs of life right now.
Sunday Morning is like every other morning – except that other mornings, I shower before I dress for the day, and I don’t need to change clothes.
The rest of the day is different. We do different things on Sunday. A lot of things we do not do. We do what is necessary in daily maintenance, and no more. We do not conduct business – though sometimes I slip and read a business email, because I am an impatient woman and always struggle with that.
But the animals must be cared for. A milking animal cannot wait just because it is Sunday. They still need milked and fed. The eggs still require gathering on Sunday, and the lambs, and calves, and kids, and chicks must be fed and tended.
The pens do not need cleaned, and the garden does not need to be weeded, the compost does not need turned, and the mushrooms do not need to be sown in. The hay does not need stacked, the feed does not need to be bought, and the cages do not need to be built today. These are chores for another day.
Sunday only starts like every other day. Then it becomes a day of rest. I used to puzzle over that. Especially since Mormons tend to fill Sunday pretty full, and sometimes it is anything BUT restful.
Then I realized that when you are sleeping, you are not doing nothing. You are recharging. Rest gives your body time to repair, and time to rebuild strength. And that is what we do on Sunday, though it is spiritual, not physical. We set aside all the daily demands that can be set aside, and give ourselves wholly to the work of the Lord for that one day.
It used to be a day when I COULD NOT. And now it is a day when I DO NOT HAVE TO. So rather than grumbling that I am behind in work for our business, and worrying that I cannot answer those emails or pack those boxes, I now relax and know that I don’t have to worry about being behind for this one day. I can ignore all the feeling of being overtaxed or behind or of never being enough, and today, on Sunday, I am enough, and all of that can wait until tomorrow.
I have learned that when I let it go for one day, trying my best to obey the law of the Sabbath, I am blessed. I catch up faster on what I was behind with. We have more orders on weeks where we get it right than we do on weeks when we give in and take care of things that could have waited. I have more energy, and more creative thought processes which lead to more productive writing and business management. When I give that one day to the Lord, He gives me back a better week.
The farm animals have no agency, and no conviction that would compel them to obey the same law of the Sabbath that we choose to obey. They have not the ability TO choose such a thing, and they cannot care for themselves. So they still require feeding and some tending. So Sunday morning seems just like every other day when it begins.
But everything else can wait. And the farm can rest, for just one day.
Sears, Sears… How the Mighty Have Fallen
The king of mail order. At one time they shipped entire HOUSES, and just about everything else you could order and have shipped to your home. The mighty giant that should have known how to make the transition to the internet better than any other company in the world.
Apparently they slipped a gear somewhere, because they are in serious trouble. After dealing with them to try to get the freezer my mother ordered, actually delivered, I can see why.
This is a rough sequence of events:
Ordered freezer online. Price agreed to when credit card info is entered, is $530. Price on receipt is $530. Delivery date listed as 4 days after order date.
Delivery date comes and goes. We look up the order online. Price billed is listed as $561 (and change). Tax was not calculated during checkout, but has been added later. NOT GOOD!
Delivery is listed as scheduled for the day before. Ummmm Yeah. Delivery is scheduled for YESTERDAY.
We call the number listed on the website for deliveries of online orders. They tell us the delivery is scheduled and will be received when scheduled. The foreign speaking rep assures us that there is nothing wrong, and that the delivery is on schedule. We point out that the date was YESTERDAY, and they grudgingly admit that they need to look into it, and assure us that someone will call back.
Nobody does.
We call again. They go through the same routine. Nobody calls back.
We call again. They tell us that we have the wrong number for this kind of thing, and that we should have called somebody else. We tell them this is the number for online order deliveries that is posted on the website. They assure us it is not (it is), and then give us a different number to call. It is local. For a Sears store here.
We call, no answer. The Sears store is no longer in operation. There will never be an answer at that number.
We call customer service back. They tell us again it is the wrong number, but they have no other number to give us. Then they tell us they will look up the order, and that they do not know where the freezer is. The tell us they will call us back. We say no. Give us to a supervisor.
After some runaround, they do. Or at least, he says he is a supervisor. His English is a little more clear, not much. He tells us that the delivery is rescheduled, and that we will get a call the night before it is delivered.
We don’t. It does not come.
(At this point, we have informed them TWICE, that the store they keep telling us to call no longer exists. They are not interested in this information, and assure us they can fix whatever problem it is that is getting in the way, which they admit they cannot identify.)
We call back. The rep cannot speak English well enough to be understood. By this time, we have no patience with her. We tell her we cannot understand her. We KEEP telling her we cannot understand her, and that we need to speak with a supervisor. She keeps refusing, and keeps babbling on the other end of the phone. Finally she passes us to a supervisor.
He informs us that they are having trouble getting the freezer from the manufacturer, but it is scheduled to leave the factory on Wednesday night, and that they will call us when it does, and we will get it the next day.
Now, I’m no dummy. I know that there is no Kenmore factory anywhere near. Overnight deliveries DO NOT HAPPEN on appliances. NEVER. I inform him of this. He assures me I am wrong, and that it will happen just as he says, and gives us no other option but to take his word for it.
No call, no freezer.
We call back.
The rep tells us that the order has been put on hold. Then she says that she can schedule it for delivery the next day. The next day is Saturday. NOBODY DELIVERS APPLIANCES ON SATURDAY! We KNOW this! I tell her this. She says WELL if we do not want it on Saturday she can schedule it for another time! I try to tell her that she is incorrect, or that her order tracking system is incorrect, that it CANNOT be delivered on a Saturday because the stores and delivery companies do not deliver on Saturdays! She is not getting this. She is not even IN the US, so she has no clue what I am talking about. I ask for a Supervisor. She tells me she needs to check some more, and I tell her that it is obvious she cannot help me, and to pass me to a supervisor. She hangs up on me.
I call back. The next rep tells me the same thing. I ask for a supervisor, and she puts me off until I insist. Then she tells me there are no supervisors available and runs me around on the “it will be delivered tomorrow” (Saturday) thing. She does not know what happened to the order, she does not know who has the freezer, she does not know whether it is even in stock, yet she assures me that it will be delivered on a Saturday when Saturday deliveries do not happen! I ask for a supervisor again, and she hangs up on me.
I look up the local Sears store numbers and start calling, hoping SOMEBODY in the US can actually help us.
We are now waiting for a local store to call us back. At least they speak English.
This is why Sears is failing.
They did not outsource their Call Center.
They outsourced their Customer Service. They outsourced their reputation to someone who will say anything to avoid dealing with customers, and who will NEVER pass problems up the chain where they can be solved.
They outsourced their reputation to someone who does not guard it.
They deserve to fail.
Which is sad, because Kenmore appliances really are fairly good appliances.
If you can get them.
UPDATE: We finally know what happened to the freezer.
Online orders are assigned to the nearest Sears store for fulfillment. The local store near us closed, but apparently nobody in the delivery department has realized this (in spite of the fact that we informed them at least four times, and in spite of the fact that the two LOCAL stores KNEW that this IS AN ONGOING problem!).
The computers in one area don’t know what is happening in other areas, and customer service cannot see beyond their computers (and they do not want to, since that requires effort). So the delivery is scheduled, but there is no one on the other end of the delivery order to pick it up and ship it out. They promise it will be delivered, and it never is. Nobody in the Delivery department has the brains to actually look and see why, or to try to call the assigned store and see where the problem is, or to call the regional manager and see why the freezer is hung up.
This problem would have been SO EASY to solve… Not just temporarily for us, but permanently so it did not happen to anyone else! But horrendously incompetent customer service stopped that from happening, and is now perpetrating this kind of stupidity upon other hapless customers.
The left hand knoweth not that the right hand has been cut off.
SECOND UPDATE: So, here it is, three weeks and many phone calls later. For a few days it actually looked like there was hope of getting the freezer.
The Regional Center called us a week ago (after we left messages in two different local stores), and told us that the delivery was scheduled for the following Tuesday (Monday being a Holiday). Sure enough, Sunday night, the recorded call comes in, telling us the freezer will be delivered on Tuesday (the first time the call came in when promised).
Tuesday comes and goes – the freezer does not follow the call. We call back to the local store, they take a message and say they will contact the Regional manager and that he will call us back. He does not.
24 hours later, we call back, and are informed that the local Sears can do nothing, it has been too long since the order was placed, and the only people who can help us is the people who REFUSE to help us.
In fact, those are almost exactly the words of the associate who called us back with the message from the Regional Manager: “I’m sorry, but the Manager said that the only people who can help you is the people who won’t help you.”
Good call, Sears! Put the satisfaction of customers in the hands of an offshore company that does not give a rip whether your company sinks. Put it in the hands of people, whom, when there is a problem they do not understand, start hanging up on customers. Put it in the hands of people who will not actually even look to see that the system has broken down, or see where it is broke. You might as well hire your competitors to handle your customer service, because they are getting your business either way!
Today a dispute on the payment for the freezer is being filed. The payment cleared a day or two after the order was place, because their system was informed that the freezer was being delivered, even though it was not, and could not be, because those instructed to do so were laid off when the store was closed.
Sorry Sears. You had your chances… More than enough of them.
We shall mourn your passing when the company is belly up. With customer experiences like this, it is inevitable.
So my mother ended up buying a smaller freezer, at a higher price, locally. It was delivered when promised. Ironically enough, on a Saturday. Local stores sometimes DO deliver on Saturday. I’m sure they did it just to prove me wrong! She happily began filling it within minutes of delivery.
On the other hand, if you’d like to save your business, I offer business consulting services which could turn your ship around and head it back into the wind… Because when we consult with a company, we pay attention to the customer experience!
NOTE: One other aspect about hiring overseas call centers for customer service.
They are functioning in a different culture. Many of the cultures do NOT ALLOW a person to seek help when faced with a problem. They are punished for it if they do.
So when a problem occurs, they must either SOLVE it themselves, or BURY it. They cannot even ask for training in this thing.
This means if YOU HIRE THEM, and they run into a problem, then YOU will never know what the problem IS. It will never reach you.
The phone clerk will have a problem, and will not report it to management. When management has a problem, they won’t report it to you.
Problems stay isolated, reoccurring, again and again, when they could have been easily solved simply by a little communication or brainstorming.
Summer Mushroom Adventures
It seems that once people know you are interested in mycology, they take an interest in sharing their finds with you. This has provided some interesting experiences in the last few weeks.
First, a Giant Puffball walked in the front door, in the hands of a little boy who had been in the Primary class I had substituted for a few Sundays previous. A mushroom that has been requested by my customers, so I was very pleased to receive it! It was set to cure in the basement, where it emitted an unpleasant odor for about a week before it finally stopped stinking. But it is curing well, so it was worth the smell.
Next, some Aspen Boletes made their way here, along with some lovely mature King Boletes. Easy to tell them apart – the Aspens bruise dark, and the spore tubes go dark gray with age, whereas the Kings do not bruise, and the tubes turn an olive green shade. Both were riddled with maggots, which is not a problem since they drop out as soon as we start to dry the mushrooms. Disappointing to me though, because the maggots drop out onto the drying trays (we have screens, over trays, so there is a catch pan under each screen), and we have no chickens right now to enjoy the benefits of those maggoty mushrooms!
Some Aspen Oysters wandered in one day, and were promptly set to dry for spawn, and some were used to sow a box of aspen shavings so we can grow more. Oyster mushrooms are easy to grow, and Aspen Oysters have the distinction of being able to grow on Alder.
A few days ago I was given two mushrooms that were old and degraded. They appeared to be a polypore of some kind – not that there was any spore surface left, but I’d seen a polypore before that had degraded in the same way, with the same kind of pattern on the underside when the spore surface had been eaten away by bugs. They were waterlogged, soggy, and maggoty (more so than the boletes). The stems were falling off, and the caps were hardly holding together. I chose NOT to bring them into the house!
The lady who gave them to me said as an afterthought, “They were growing from the same stem.”. I promptly forgot that she said that.
Later, when trying to ID them, I could see the texture and color of the caps, and combined with my assumption of a polypore was a good start. But I could not get an ID for anything, there are just too many stemmed polypores of similar color.
Finally went back outside to look at them again, and paid attention to the stems. I could see where they had broken apart, and they had a common base… and a ROOT! They had a sturdy black root that descended from one of the stems, that I had not noticed before.
I knew that was the identifying feature, because roots like that on mushrooms are uncommon. Turns out that there is only one rooted polypore, and it is known by that name.
If I had not had the stems, and had not seen that root, I could not have ID’d that mushroom. Having the root made the ID EASY because there is nothing else like it – orange cap, and black root, confirmed the polypore ID.
When you receive mushrooms from other people, they may or may not have the entire stem intact. It is always more helpful for identifying if you have the entire mushroom with the stem base, and a description of the habitat where it was growing, because those things can help to confirm an ID, and in some cases, they can be the ONLY clue to a certain ID.
A lot of people have been sending me photos of mushrooms to ID. 9 out of 10 of those images are Little Brown Mushrooms, and an ID is fairly hopeless. I generally only bother with edibles, if they are not edible, or medicinal in some cases, I could care less what they are called.
There is a rule about edible mushrooms. Generally they are the more substantial mushrooms. There are a few LBMs (Little Brown Mushrooms), or LWMs (Little White Mushrooms), or LGMs (Little Gray Mushrooms) which are edible and grow in troops, but overall, the good edibles will be large, and have distinctive features. The smaller ones are too difficult to differentiate, there are just too many like them, and they are generally not worth identifying anyway, since they would take too many to be worth the effort to pick. Consequently, many have never been identified, and most mushroom hunters ignore them because they are too tricky to get right, and not worth the bother anyway.
Today I felt impressed to go to an abandoned chicken coop that is on the property we are renting. It has rained daily for the last several days, so today was a good day to look for mushrooms. But I had not thought to look in there before – the roof leaks, and it has a good layer of old rotted sawdust and chicken manure in it. It occurred to me that something might come up in there because of the rains.
As soon as I came inside the door, I laughed. There was a mushroom, about 3″ across, right in the middle of the floor! Not just any mushroom…. Agaricus Bisporus. Brown Bisporus.
A few old nearly dried mushrooms lurked in the corners, and some new buttons peeked up here and there. Clearly the composting litter was well colonized with Agaricus Bisporus mycellium.
The MOST COMMON commercial mushroom. Nothing special. Nothing exotic.
But this is a fine thing for me, because I was unable to find a strain of Agaricus Bisporus with which I felt satisfied, because it has mostly been crossed with Agaricus Brunnescens, and the distinction has been lost with many commercial strains. I have a really excellent strain of true Brunnescens, but my strain of Bisporus was not as good as I wanted. This new find is a BETTER strain – it has the distinctive differences that set it apart from Brunnescens (slightly thinner cap, less reddening when cut or bruised, and gills that are less pink and turn brown sooner in the maturation process). So now I have a new strain of Bisporus… which I have named “Chicken Run”. What would otherwise be no big deal has been a delightful find for me!
The same people who gave me the old rotting mushroom to ID also gave me another unidentified mushroom which keys out as Albatrellus. I have been wanting a specimen of one of the edible Albatrellus species for many months, ever since I found an old, soggy, and stinky specimen in the woods one day. Completely inedible due to its age and condition, not even usable as spawn, but identifiable due to the stem position and the fact that it is a large stemmed polypore and there are not many of those. So receiving an Albatrellus specimen was a real gift.
I am unsure of the species exactly – the genus of Albatrellus is certain, but there are a dozen or so species within the genus, many very alike. I only know it is edible because the family that gave it to us have been eating it. Narrows it to Ovinus, Confluens, or Citrinus (based on other features, but they are VERY similar). Started a box of it today, to see if I can get it to grow. I am going to have to find a way to purchase a microscope to be certain of the species though.
It has been a lot of fun having mushrooms walk in the door. I never know what is coming in next. The most amazing thing has been the number of mushrooms that I have on my “needed specimens” list that have been either handed to me personally, or shipped to me from somewhere in the US. Often the person sending them isn’t sure what they are, other times they know for certain. But in both cases, I have been brought some really amazing finds, which have added to our inventory, and are blessing our lives, and the lives of our customers.
I’ve been drawing mushroom images for our website, for the mushrooms that I do not have pics for. Some of them turned out well. Worth a look if that kind of thing interests you, they are on our Mushroom Store website – just click the link on the left for Mushrooms that can be grown indoors, and the other links below that one.
Pondering Slow Food as a Way of Life
We live in a fast food world, where we expect a meal in 5 minutes, and can take an item from the freezer to the table, within a few minutes, and serve up a hot meal with very little effort. The quality is, of course, questionable, and we forget that homemade food has the potential to taste so much better, and that it is so much better for our bodies.
The primary reason for learning to prepare foods from scratch, is quality and health. Foods without preservatives, foods that taste rich and are full of genuine flavors (not counterfeit flavors created in a lab), and which contain real ingredients which shine through. I’m not here to persuade you of the benefits. I’m only here to suggest some of the skills that make it manageable.
I have experienced the process of learning to do things more and more by hand. I’ve watched other people go through this process also – first making bread, then making whole wheat bread, then milling flour to make the bread, then making the yeast to make the bread with the home-milled flour, and eventually contemplating growing wheat (most individuals really can’t do this practically). The progress from buying the loaf, to making more and more of it yourself.
Most people will reach a point where they cannot go any further with it, and where they are comfortable with the compromise. This is pretty important, because otherwise you can really overwhelm yourself with tasks that just are not practical in our world, or in your particular corner of the world.
Slow food has benefits though, that are worth exploring. Most people are frustrated with the time it takes to begin with, until they learn skills for being able to do so within the time constraints that living, working a job, or raising children places upon them.
- Prioritizing – You can’t do everything. You have to choose what is most important, and get it done. That often means making sure a task that needs to be done today to be ready for tomorrow, is done on time.
- Letting unnecessary things go – You can’t do slow food when your life is filled with time-wasters. You have to let some idle passtimes go. If you already maximize your time, then you have to determine what you can let go that is less important than preparing healthy food. The wonderful thing about slow food is that there are many tasks which are relaxing when you learn how to do them in a convenient way, and which help form family bonds when you involve the children in the work.
- Working slow tasks in around fast ones – Much of the “work” involved with slow food is waiting. Chop the ingredients, let something marinate and wait. Put the chopped items in a pot and let it slowly simmer for hours – stir it every half hour to hour, while you do other things. Use the waiting time to do other things, and organize your day so that you can maintain the slow food in a convenient way.
- Planning ahead – You have to thaw the meat, mill the flour, render the lard, ferment the vegetables, start the stew, make the sourdough starter, or whatever else, ahead of time. You have to make it before you need it. You have to prepare ahead for many things. You have to stock in ingredients you might not otherwise use, and keep a wider selection of ingredients on hand. You have to start meals an hour or so ahead of time, sometimes more, depending on the food you are preparing. You have to think ahead. There are tricks to get by on those days when you just can’t plan ahead, but for the most part, you need to be thinking a day ahead, or at least thinking about what is for lunch and dinner while you are preparing breakfast.
- Patience – A necessary skill – and patience is a skill, not just something some people have and others do not. The more you do it, the more patient you become, so if you feel you are too impatient, don’t worry! Just expand your skills a little at a time, and your patience will grow with it!
- Learning skills to make slow things faster – Many “slow” tasks are slow because we don’t know how to do them well, and because our kitchens are not organized to make them fast. We have the flour stuck behind the Mac&Cheese, and getting at the ingredients to make our own noodles or biscuits is inconvenient. A little reorganization, and some practice, and you can make gravy in less than 5 minutes, biscuits whip up in 3-4 minutes, and you can even get bread ready to raise in 5 minutes, and that INCLUDES putting everything back into the cupboard! 90% is practice. The other 10% is observing, researching, and listening, to learn ways to do complex tasks more quickly – for example, when making your own tortillas, getting the texture right (fairly soft) makes the job MUCH faster and easier. Tips like that, which you learn over time or which you pick up from others, can make a WORLD of difference in how much you can accomplish in a day!
- Selecting the right equipment to speed things up – A crock pot, a rice cooker, a bread maker, a tortilla press, a good wheat mill, a good orbital mixer, a sturdy shredder, a fermentation airlock, the right potato masher, a ceramic non-stick skillet, thick bottomed pots that reduce burning, a flat ended wooden spoon to stir the bottom of hot pots more quickly, a pressure cooker, a deep fryer, a food dehydrator, a good meat grinder, a french fry cutter, etc. Good equipment saves time. Lots of time, and makes some tasks more fun, and safer for kids to participate. Equipment is like everything else with slow food, you don’t do it all at once – you accumulate it one item at a time, according to the things you do most.
- Learning skills layer by layer – Start by following recipes for dinner, instead of using boxes. Then advance to making or growing ingredients, one layer at a time. Taking on the whole picture (however you see the whole picture) all at once is overwhelming and certain disaster. Learn it bit by bit, and as your skills expand, you’ll naturally progress to the next phase for as long as you feel the desire TO progress to the next phase. Any degree of more real food is good!
Producing your own food from seed, bulb, chick, calf, or wild animals is the natural conclusion of slow food – Growing food is the natural extension of preparation. It allows you to know completely what is in your food, and it is the ONLY way to know for sure that your food meets your standards, because NOBODY cares more about what is in your food than you do! Gardening, raising livestock, and hunting are vital parts to producing food from scratch.
Slow food offers the opportunity to create from start to finish, and to see the process and experience all the creative effort that goes into placing food on the table.
There are rewards to slower processes, delayed gratification, and learning to wait for what is best. Those rewards are beneficial for anyone, but most important for children, who have so few instances of slow rewards in the world we live in. Planting a seed, nurturing it, seeing some live, some die, harvesting, preserving, cooking, and enjoying the food they grew with their own hands, or tended for hours or days from idea to consumption is an invaluable experience for children. When they experience this over and over in their youth, they become more patient and more productive adults, because they know that the BEST things in life take time, and investment long before the payoff.
Slow food as a way of life requires changes in the home, and in our thought processes, and in the way we move through the day. But it brings so much to us in health, satisfaction, and experience, that it is well worth the effort to adopt another layer of it into our lives.
Because it is only when you have practiced it for a few years, that you realize that what seemed like complexity, was really simplicity.
Ramping up Dinner and the Garden
A customer swapped me some fresh ramps for some of our product, so another adventure with wild food has begun. He shipped them to me damp and dirty – perfect to keep them fresh and perky during the trip from his door to mine. They were in prime condition when I received them.
One of the reasons I was curious to try them is because they seem to have a “love ’em or hate ’em” reputation. Having really enjoyed our wild garlic and wild onions previously, I wanted to know which camp they fell into, and whether there was anything special about them.
I planted about a third of them in two pots, since our garden this year is again a container garden. I cut up a third of them to put into a potato soup for dinner. Then I cut up the other third and laid them on my drying racks.
My hands do not smell much of the ramps – they actually smell more of the potatoes that I peeled. My eyes did not water when prepping them either, which I find a welcome difference from most onions. The room in which they are drying, however, is strongly pungent. As in, you open the door and the smell comes out to slap you upside the nostrils.
The Ramps smell like a cross between an onion and Elephant Garlic. You know, that sort of garlicky smell that Elephant Garlic has that is not QUITE garlic, and has an underlying nauseating note to it? I do not like Elephant Garlic because it lacks the savory flavor I love about real Garlic (and no, Elephant Garlic is not a true garlic). But that element in the ramps is not strong enough to put me off the way it does with the EG.
If you Google “cooking with Ramps” you find all sorts of recipes using ingredients that I do not keep in my kitchen. You actually have to dig a bit to find traditional uses of ramps, which is pretty much like onions or leeks.
Eggs, potatoes, biscuits, quiche, and grilled with mushrooms to pile on top of a steak are some of the traditional ways of using ramps. You can substitute scallions or shallots for ramps in any recipe, and vice-versa.
Ramps can be used fresh, or cooked. They also dehydrate well. A cousin of mine says that raw ramps can cause the same digestive affects as beans, so if you choose to slap some ramp leaves onto your sandwich while you are in the woods (or at the table), you may need to warn your family to run for cover in a few hours. I have not tested this out, it is purely hearsay from him, and from the uncle that showed him the patch of ramps where he discovered that for him, our uncle knew what he was talking about!
Our potato soup has some ground beef in it, and some Real Salt Seasoning Salt, some Meadow Mushrooms, and the potatoes and ramps. And butter. You cannot leave out the butter in potato soup. When was almost done, I added some heavy cream and flour mixture to thicken it a bit.
The finished soup tasted as though it had both garlic and onions in it. This leads me to suggest that you use Ramps in recipes that tend more toward garlic than toward onion, since they do not have much of the sweet taste of cooked onions, but more of the pungent flavor of garlic. We only used a relatively small amount in the soup also (it was a big pot of soup), and it flavored it strongly enough to really taste the flavor, but not enough to overpower. It seemed to go well with the Meadow Mushrooms, at least, if you like mushrooms!
We not only planted some of the full ramps, we also planted the root ends after I finished chopping up the ramps for the soup. Onion roots re-grow, so we will find out if ramps do also.
Ramps are a multiplier type bulb, so they will split when they reach a certain point in development, and multiply. They also set seed that drops and creates new bulbs. More like the mini-bulblets that wild garlic sets, and not like the skinny seeds that regular onions drop. They also tend to grow their bulbs downward into the ground, also like wild garlic, so the bulbs will be fairly deep in the ground. You have to dig ramps, you cannot pull them or you will just rip off the tops.
As one of the first green things to come up in certain areas in the spring, ramps have traditional importance in some regional cultures. For me, the interest is mainly that they are a wild thing that I can learn to use and cultivate, so that the culture is not lost. Since they are a popular item for upscale gourmet cooking among a certain segment of society, there may be a potential income opportunity in the future, if I should wish to produce seed or bulbs. Growing them will provide an advantage for our gardens also, because they produce so early in the gardening season, that they’ll be producing while the traditional garlic and onions are thinking about sprouting.
Most sources state that ramps only grow in the eastern states, and north into Canada, but the cousin who warns about the flatulent affects of fresh ramps found them in the Pacific Northwest, so they are likely far more prevalent than commonly known. But then, in the PNW, there are some other spring plants that look very similar, so it may be that people there are just more cautious about harvesting them, even though the smell of the roots will tell you for certain what you have! Or, upon further contemplation, perhaps the Pacific Northwest just has more green stuff in the spring, so ramps are largely unappreciated there.
Having tried them, I’d use them again, probably in chicken, sauteed in butter, or over pasta. I think they go best with light dishes where the flavor of them is featured rather than lost, and in simple things where the flavors don’t get so complicated that the pungency of the ramps conflicts with the other ingredients. I don’t think I’d enjoy them whole as a dish themselves, since the flavor is pretty strong, but lean toward using them more as a seasoning.
I’ll have dried ramps to use as seasoning through the summer, and next year, if my pots of ramps do well, I’ll have a little more to cook with, dry, and to expand my containers of them.
I don’t think I’ll ever be an outright afficianado, but I’m pleased to have tried them, and pleased to be one of those people who does not hate them! And I am very happy to be able to grow them.
Where Wild Onions Grow
I could not find it in the wild – spring has eluded me where I was familiar with the wild areas. I’ve had my eye open for it for several years and still no luck. So when I spied it on the website of one of my suppliers, I snatched up a bunch of it along with the other supplies I was ordering.
Wild Onions. There is confusion over wild onions and wild garlic. More over wild onions than wild garlic, because wild garlic is pretty easy to identify – looks like tall straight chives, with round stems, smells and tastes like garlic (deep tiny bulbs, so you have to dig it, cannot pull it).
That is one of the key identifiers with both wild onion and wild garlic – their leaves are the opposite of the domestic versions. Garlic is round, onions are flat.
Wild onion also forms deep bulbs, and should be dug, not pulled, if you find it and positively identify it. Make sure you ID it using several descriptions with images from different sources before you consume it though, because while there are more than a dozen different kinds of edible wild onions, there are also one or two look-alikes that are harmful if you mistake the identity – be aware that there are signs to look for, and once you KNOW what to look for the ID can be made for certain, but make sure you KNOW.
Having ordered it, I had no idea what I’d be getting. I received a bunch of oniony looking things, with flat V’d leaves (not tubular like domesticated onions), and with lovely white bell flowers drooping from the tops. Seven of them had good root systems still on them, so I planted them in a container.
The eighth had no roots. I chopped it up and fried it in butter with some Hedgehog mushrooms. Chopping it up did not make my eyes water. I think that is worth noting!
It had a mild onion flavor, which was very good with the mushrooms.
After dinner, I did a net search to ID the specific type. It appears to be Allium Triquetrum, which is a non-native plant in the US. Grows in the south and along the coast, quite far north. It is considered to be an invasive species in California – so if you live there, you might especially wish to learn to identify this weed, and make a habit of digging it up and bringing it home for dinner.
If you live elsewhere, various types of wild onion grow almost everywhere, and wild garlic is also widespread. Both are worth looking for – not just because they are wild food, but because they offer slightly different flavors when prepared.
Wild onions usually pop up with the early bulbs, right as the ground thaws, and they set flowers 6-8 weeks later. If you see something that looks like it might be wild onion or garlic, pinch a leaf and see if it has that distinctive smell. You’ll know! If it doesn’t say “ONION!” or “GARLIC!” immediately to the smell centers of your brain, then it isn’t onion or garlic! If it does, then get a sample to take home to ID. It is best if you have the bulb, leaves, and flowers if possible (in fact you will have a difficult time IDing wild onion without a sample of the flowers).
If you forage wild onions, make sure you watch out for pesticides and herbicides. If they look skinny and wimbly, then they may not be good for you unless you flush them out by soaking the roots in water for several days. They typically are somewhat droopy in the leaves, but very lush and clustered together, much like Daylilies, but a slightly smaller leaf.
I’ll be encouraging my little pot of wild onions to reproduce, and I’ll be on the lookout for other varieties and more wild garlic.
Don’t Waste Money On Commercial Potting Mix!
I wonder who it was that decided that people could make soil better than Mother Nature, who has been at it for thousands of years by Creationist reckoning, and millions of years by Evolutionist reckoning.
It is sort of like processed foods. All the good stuff is stripped out, and a few essential (though undigestible) nutrients are added back in, and a nice looking but nutritionally deficient and often outright harmful product is released to the public in the name of “good food”, and the manufacturer persuades millions that it is better than what they could cook themselves, mostly because it is convenient.
With potting mix though, it isn’t necessarily any more convenient than the alternative! And it is several times the cost! It is made from various forms of industrial waste, and a few synthetic manufactured items (made in China, principally from petroleum). Oh, and some of the “better” stuff has chemical fertilizers thrown in. A few “organic” types have a wee bit of sterilized manure or fish emulsion (ground up fish guts) thrown in. No wonder it is so difficult to get things to grow in it, and no wonder it is impossible to re-wet if it ever dries out completely!
No more convenient, WORSE performance, and MORE expensive. MORE harmful to the environment, and a pain in the neck to work with under less than ideal conditions. Wow… they’ve really managed to snooker the buying public!
The best thing to grow plants in is…
Drumroll, please, this is a major revelation…
DIRT!!!
Rich, nutrient filled, bacteria and fungus laden, water holding, DIRT!
Topsoil, to be exact.
With some compost on top.
Easy peasy.
Even in pots indoors, DIRT is the best thing to grow plants in. Seriously, folks, how hard a concept is this? The substance that plants EVOLVED to grow in (if you subscribe to that theory), or the substance that GOD PROVIDED for plants to grow in (if this is your belief) is the BEST thing for plants to grow in! (I am still astonished that I have to actually EXPLAIN this to people, and even more shocked that most will hear my instructions and promptly go out and buy another bag of potting mix because someone else told them to or because the picture on the bag was prettier, or worse, because the sales person told them it was better.)
You either have dirt where you want to grow things or you don’t.
If you don’t have dirt, why buy a mixture of industrial waste and manufactured synthetics to plant your plants in?
What you SHOULD buy, if you HAVE to buy some kind of potting medium or soil for your garden, is….
DIRT!
Topsoil to be exact.
Just buy a bag of topsoil instead. It is less than $2 for a bag of topsoil. Compare that to $5 for a comparable size bag of potting mix. You just made out like a bandit! Less than half the price and BETTER!
Buy a bag of compost also. That will cost you another $2 if you live in an area where things cost a lot.
Fill your pots with topsoil, or spread the topsoil over your garden. Then top it with about a 3″ layer of compost.
If you need it to hold water really well, DON’T get anything with those nasty silica beads in it! Avoid those! They cause the soil to LOSE water (they absorb the water, and then the water evaporates directly from them, the plants never get it from the silica, it will cause your soil to dry out FASTER – we’ve done side by side tests with this, it FAILS every time).
The key to getting your soil to hold water is MULCH. Try one of the following:
- Grass Clippings
- Leaf Litter
- Wood Shavings
- Sawdust
- Woodchips
- Straw (you will get some wheat grass sprouts)
You can purchase Aspen shavings, or even use Pine Bedding or Cypress Mulch from the pet section of your local store. Just don’t use Cedar.
A good layer of mulch on top will reduce the amount of water you need by 70%.
And it is EXACTLY how nature does it in the wild. She leaves the last year’s plant debris on the top of the soil to compost down and give you a layer of compost on top of your soil, and then a layer of coarse debris on top of that to protect the compost from washing off, and to keep the moisture in the soil.
You can do this in a container garden, with houseplants, and in the garden, in your landscaping, etc. Wherever you GROW things, you can create this three layer miracle of growth and productivity.
- Topsoil
- Compost
- Mulch
It is that simple.
Potting mix does not come into it ANYWHERE. Mother Nature didn’t invent potting mix. She doesn’t like it! Plants don’t like it!
Get the good stuff. The REAL stuff.
It will save you money, and your plants will grow better.
Through the Eyes of Need
I do not know how many years our family participated in the annual Scouting for Food activity in our town, gathering food door to door, taking it to a central location, sorting it, then taking it out to people in need in our town that same day. The last two years we participated in Scouting for Food, we saw the intake decline dramatically.
Our seven living children are adults now, and they were raised in circumstances that were extremely modest. We fed any child that walked through the door of our double-wide, who happened to still be there at mealtime, and there were many through the years. We were not the only family in the small town we lived in who would do this. We were just the largest. We took loaves of fresh bread to the neighbors, delivered cinnamon rolls to people around town after baking, and brought cookies to people we knew. Our children raked leaves and shoveled walks for many of the elderly without pay, carried in groceries for them, and helped them with lifting and cleanup. If a neighbor moved in, they ran out to help tote boxes from the truck to the house. It was a way of life, and one I never really considered to be unique, or fading.
I can feel the change sweeping over our nation. Especially in the last 10-15 years. Our nation is no longer a nation of givers. It is a nation of takers.
Lest anyone be offended, I realize there are people who still give, and generously. I have personally received much from such people. But I also see, as I never have before, that the native generosity of Americans has changed dramatically in the last decade, or little more. Even those who WANT to give, now find it harder and harder to do so.
Recently on Facebook, an article circled regarding statements made by foreigners about what surprised them most in America. One of the comments was expressing surprise that so many Americans gave to charities. That stunned them. Most nations are far more socialistic than the US, and the more socialistic a nation becomes, the less the citizens give to charities, or personally to their neighbors.
The first thing to go, is personal concern for their neighbors. Then they stop giving to charities. Charitable contributions in the US are now on the decline.
For many people, the lack of connection and concern for their neighbors is an outright abdication of responsibility, but for many it isn’t that at all – many of us still WANT to give.
Part of it is simply an inability to SEE need anymore.
The transients that ask for help in the Wal-Mart driveway are obvious. The homeless people under the bridges and pushing shopping carts are also obvious. But to much of America, those things are NOT visible. The majority of America is made up of smaller towns and rural stretches. And you just do not see those things in rural America, or even in small towns or suburbs.
Need is more often private than public. It hides behind the closed doors of homes where only friends and family see. Many people in need now have NO friends or family who ever enter their homes – their friends are all in remote locations. The needs behind those doors are sometimes every bit as dire as the desperate people we pass in the car, whom we feel are NOT our next door neighbors. Our neighbors do not hang their needs in the street or wear them out of doors.
The internet has replaced personal contact. The face we show the world online is not the face we look at in the mirror each evening. The lines of care and worry, framed by bottles of prescriptions from serious illness, the clothing that is worn, the background of a home sparsely furnished or too few blankets on the bed, the absence of a coat, or an empty fridge, the heaps of despairing unpaid bills. These things simply are not visible online.
To see need, you have to BE there. You have to see what is NOT spoken, and what cannot be broadcast to the world at large. Even caring Christians are simply not THERE where need IS much of the time. We WANT to be involved, to give, to help, to lift up and strengthen. But we are simply not THERE enough to SEE.
Life is so busy sometimes, we get stuck in our routine – those routines all vary from person to person, but they contain a common element of focusing on where we are and where we need to be next, and often not seeing beyond that. Sometimes I feel like I am drowning, coming up for air to gasp on Sunday, when I associate with people in my own area, then plunging back under for a week of slog through business and online interaction (necessary for my business). I am as guilty as anyone else of not being THERE during the week, and have had to make a strong effort to just stop and visit one person on the way home each week. I struggle to connect the people in my community with the daily routine apart from Sundays. It makes it difficult for me to see needs – and though my routine is unique, I do not feel that the difficulty in seeing needs IS unique, nor the reasons why it is so hard.
For the last three years, we have lived in need. Great need, due to things we did not cause, and which we could not stop, and which by their very nature have been very difficult to overcome. Many hands reached out to help. But many did not. Kind people, who simply never came close enough to us to even SEE that the clothing they were taking to the Salvation Army was needed by someone they knew, or the working toaster they were trying to find a home for would have been welcome in ours.
Early in our marriage when we had nothing, and at other times of hardship, we have been on the receiving end of great kindness, of all kinds. Much of it unasked – when you have seven kids in the home, people just assume you always need SOMETHING. A lot of it was mentioned by us, because we knew it was SAFE to mention it. Needs were met time and again, by people who knew us and saw our needs. We likewise filled boxes of groceries to deliver to people out of work, bought gift cards to give anonymously to people in need, and handed bags of food to hungry people passing through. But it really HAS changed recently. On both the giving and receiving end. The receiving end is a topic for another day…
America is more “programs” oriented now than even 10 years ago. When needs present, most people do not open their pockets to help, they refer the people to a program. But programs do not meet the majority of needs. They do not see inside the home, inside the heart, and inside the life of a person in need. They are incapable of perceiving the genuine needs, which are sometimes NOT what a program is designed to meet.
Programs, through the government, or charities, are limited, necessarily, by arbitrary rules. They are not designed to see exceptional circumstances, and a massive percentage of people in need ARE exceptions. We were exceptions – deeply in need, no income, no belongings at all, no transportation, no financial reserves. Our need was very real – yet we did not qualify for assistance through the state, through reasons beyond our control. Fortunately, we belong to a church which has a very successful welfare program, and we were able to receive assistance as we worked to get back on our feet. It was only able to meet some of our needs though – important ones, but leaving many things wanting.
I am NOT complaining about having needs unmet – we SURVIVED only because we had help. I am merely illustrating how my eyes were opened to the complexity of meeting the needs of disadvantaged people. No program in the world can do it. Because it has to be PERSONAL, and only individuals can be personal. Programs cannot be personal.
As I have considered the issue, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one real solution. Those who wish to serve the Lord and be the hands that relieve suffering, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, lift up the infirm and comfort the lonely and grieving, must VISIT people, IN THEIR HOMES – the internet is not enough! They must form bonds of genuine friendship and caring. They must learn to see through the eyes of charity – seeing the limitations in the person, seeing the good in them, and wisely aiding them in ways that help them to be uplifted and made better by the help, not just relieved of a burden temporarily. Help that makes someone better in the long term, and which helps them become less dependent on that assistance, is wrought in the workshop of deeply personal relationships.
For us, the needs that were met, were not met by a single person. They were met by many people – a skirt here, shoes there, a computer from someone else. A friend linked our new business website to her websites, and promoted me through her social media network. Two great ladies suggested a place to look for a house when we needed to move. Another friend sold us a used car, for far less than they could have got elsewhere. Two others helped patch a business back together so we again had the ability to build an income. A family member sent money for my husband to buy a bike when we had no car, and another family member stuffed $70 in cash into my hand one day (all the cash she had with her) on an impulse before they got in the car to leave, because she decided that the need she saw from us was greater than hers at the time. Someone else invited us to work for three days at a flower shop, giving us some income to tide us over a rough spot, and introduced us to another individual who helped my husband apply for a VA grant for job retraining – the only program we qualified for! A kind stranger in one town cleaned out her freezer and gave us quite a bit of meat. Several close friends and family members listened to me cry, and encouraged me when things were at their worst. Each person gave a little thing, and the total added up to survival. It had to be personal, in order to even see those things that we needed, and to understand the extent of our needs, and our limitations.
I have looked at the world through the eyes of need, more than once. This time has been by far the hardest. At the same time, it has truly deepened my appreciation for those who HAVE sincerely befriended us. Many could offer nothing to help us but prayer, because that is all they had to share. But they did that.
I do not know if the tide that seems to be turning America inward can be turned, so that we learn to see outside ourselves again, and to see behind the superficial masks that people wear in casual virtual interactions. I don’t know if that is even the goal. Perhaps the only goal is turning it in OURSELVES.
Americans Don’t Know What Mushrooms Taste Like
Ok, so a few Americans do. Maybe a third. If you push it.
The rest of America doesn’t even know there is more than one type of mushroom! To them, a mushroom is either a dry tasteless fungusy bit of foam rubber, or a slimy gray fungusy flavored bit of rubbery silicone. If they are particularly adventurous, they may know that Portobellos and Crimini mushrooms exist. A few very exotic individuals also know there is something called a Shiitake out there that people are reputed to actually eat.
That is most of America! I used to be one of them! It is no wonder I HATED mushrooms. Nasty things, only barely edible if you could chop them small and hide them where you did not have to actually TASTE them, or feel the slippery gooshy feel on your tongue or teeth.
The world outside of America understands that a mushroom is not just a mushroom. That the white button mushroom is the WORST of the mushroom clan, and that there exists an entire WORLD of mushrooms that are actually worth putting on the plate.
Portobello and Crimini mushrooms taste pretty much like a white button – unless they are grown without chlorine, in which the flavor is fuller, and more complex (a little fruitier and more savory). But to me, pretty much just another “hide them wherever you can” mushroom.
Of course, as a child, and as an adult, I’d tried Meadow Mushrooms, and they fall into the same camp as the nasty White Buttons. They are prettier though, with lovely pink gills, and I chop them up and put them into meat gravy and pretend they are not there!
Shiitakes are reputed to have a “smoky flavor”. I can’t taste it. They are just a mushroom. Fresh ones disappear into mixed dishes and you can’t taste them. Canned ones are just nasty slimy things that look like canned leaches. Dried ones are easy to snip up with a pair of scissors into any dish that has a water or broth base, and they’ll reconstitute as the rest of the meal cooks. But I can’t really identify anything spectacular about the flavor, they just taste like a mushroom to me, and I do not particularly like them.
The first mushroom I tasted that I did not hate was a King Trumpet Oyster Mushroom. A fat stemmed oyster mushroom with a little brown cap on top, and tiny gills running barely down the stem. It has a slightly sweet flavor. I didn’t hate it because the mildness of the flavor makes it easy to toss it into pretty much ANYTHING and not have to dwell on the fact that it is still, when all is said and done, a mushroom.
Then I tried Chanterelles. Ok, so I am still not sure what all the fuss is about where Chanterelles are concerned. While I do not hate them, and I find that they have a slippery texture but not the gooshy sliminess of the white button (a more firm bite), they still taste like a mushroom – sort of fruity, but fungusy. It is the fungusy part I have never appreciated in mushrooms, so I failed to become a fan of the Chanterelle – but I do not actively dislike them either.
White Garden False Elm Oyster mushrooms do not seem to have any flavor at all to me once they are cooked and added to a dish. If I chop them finely, I do not even know they are there. Another mushroom I do not hate. But I cannot say I like it either. Later, when I tried Angel Wing Oysters, they seemed pretty much the same – I simply cannot taste them in a finished dish. (These two mushrooms are DIFFERENT GENERA, not merely different species, and white Oysters are NOT Angel Wings. They have a different growth habit.)
Then I tried Paddy Straw mushrooms. Oh, not the slimy flavorless canned ones. Dried Straw Mushrooms. I made a simple gravy with them. They knocked it out of the park! A full, dark, almost meaty flavor. WOW. A mushroom I actually LIKED. I don’t love them. But I actually like them!
Russulas fell into the “I can’t taste them” camp. Of course, you must understand I NEVER feature mushrooms in a dish that is just mushrooms. Just can’t make myself go there! Cut them up, cook them in butter, toss them into something that I hope will complement them. Or at least which won’t end up with a clash of flavors that ruins dinner entirely – and the Russulas that taste sweet raw have such a mild flavor that they disappear completely when mixed with other ingredients. Russulas do not offend me!
Various Agaricus species were not any different than Portobellos, when prepared fresh. When dried though, they developed a more savory flavor. Almost like the Paddy Straw. Except the Almond scented ones. Some of them retained some of the almond flavor and let it into the dish (if they are really fresh). Flavor good. Texture unappealing to me – too mushroomy. But OH, they smell just heavenly!
Slippery Jacks have presented two ways – one is fairly tasteless to me. I cannot tell if they are a good mushroom or not, because I honestly cannot taste the flavor. They sort of lose themselves in whatever we put them into. The other type has been like a mild Porcini, with a savory flavor.
Maitake has a sort of spicy apple smell and flavor. Like a fungusy spiced apple with a faintly nauseating undertone. Very odd. We put it into a meatloaf which was baked in a pumpkin. It was good. But I am still uncertain whether I liked the Maitake or not!
Gold Cap Stropharia (Stropharia Ambigua) smells just like the bottom of a forest floor. That deep rich moldy dirt smell that rises up right after a rain. They taste about the same, but with a sharp strong flavor. I cannot say this is a mushroom that I like, but I did not hate it either, as long as I do not use too much in a dish – they seem to work best when combined with other mushrooms. I am still working on flavor combinations to see if there is a dish that I’d actually love to use it in. It is such an earthy flavor that it can easily overpower whatever you add them to.
And Blewits – they just taste like a mushroom to me! Maybe a stronger more robust flavor than white buttons, but just a mushroom. I manage to eat them without hating them. I’ve used them fresh and dried, and they are a usable food either way.
I think I might eventually learn to like Porcini. I cannot describe the flavor, because there is nothing to compare it with. Hints of savory, with the classic mushroom flavor, but an edge of something else too – almost but not quite buttery. It seemed to taste better in a chicken and rice dish than it did in a dish with red sauce and beef. The texture is also more palatable than other mushrooms, when cooked it has a firm texture that is less slippery and gooshy than the detested mushrooms. (UPDATE: I like Porcini fresh, sauteed in butter and served with something cream and chicken – like Chicken Porcini Alfredo. In beef or pork dishes it is ok, but not quite as good. Dried Porcini is better in beef than fresh but still has a distinctive buttery edge to it that other mushrooms do not. Porcini is better without onions.)
Gray Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus Ostreatus), and Phoenix Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus Pulmonarius) both taste about the same to me when cooked, though they SMELL differently from each other. Grays seem to have kind of a sweet ball point ink smell that many mushrooms have, and no other distinctive smell. Older Oyster mushrooms may begin to smell a little fishy. But none of them taste fishy. Their flavor is so mild it seems to take on whatever you prepare with them. They have a firm texture, very chewy when fried in butter or cooked in soup, either one. Sort of like tender clams, or maybe calamari. They do fry nicely in butter, they absorb less of the butter than many other mushrooms, and end up firm, with a golden color.
Freckled Dapperlings (Myobalista Aspera) have sort of a sweet candle smell when cooked, and a mild flavor. They were a pleasant surprise when we found them, and discovered that for us, they were actually edible (they should never be consumed with alcohol, they will cause illness that way).
I don’t understand the hype about Matsutake. It has a piney smell, but the odor seems to fade fairly rapidly after gathering (this is true of many mushrooms, including the Almond scented Agaricus species). It is a firm mushroom – not quite as tough as Oyster, but firmer than Chanterelles. The ones we tried didn’t have a stand out flavor, we had to use them either in larger pieces, or we had to prepare them with ingredients that do not cover them up. We tried Matsutake that had caps just starting to open, so it is probable that the Grade 1 Matsutake with unopened caps may be stronger flavored.
I’ve also had various types of Puffballs, gathered in the wild. They taste just a little less fungusy than a white button, and are prepared about the same way. The texture is a bit softer, and they can really absorb the butter!
Black Trumpets just taste like mushrooms to me. They are raved over, but maybe I missed the point.
Yellowfoot Chanterelles also just taste like Mushrooms. Again, I can put them into anything and hide them pretty well, so I’m ok with them.
Hedgehog Mushrooms are pretty good. I really said that, didn’t I? They smell sort of caramelly when cooking, and have a vaguely sweet flavor. If they are dried, they end up having a chewy meaty texture when cooked that is not slippery at all (remove stems if drying them).
Brown Beech Mushrooms just taste like mushrooms. You have to cook them, so they end up like little slimy rubbery things, but I can disguise them in almost anything so we get along.
And MORELS. Ok, so I really LIKE Morels. They do not taste like mushrooms! Fried in butter until they are browned, they have a sort of meaty texture, and they taste savory and not mushroomy at all. I hate to get on a hype bandwagon with everyone else, but these are truly unique in the mushroom world. At least, to me, so far. I’ll make sure and note it though if I find others that have a similar flavor and texture because it is worth knowing.
Shaggy Mane is a WONDERFULLY flavored mushroom. Sort of savory almost chickeny flavored when fried in butter. One of the only mushrooms to make me say, “Wow!” when I tried it! Not at all “mushroomy”. Older Shaggy Manes do not have an outstanding flavor, they are more neutral.
The cousin to Shaggy Mane, Coprinopsis Atramentarius, which is also known as Tippler’s Bane because it reacts with alcohol, tastes nothing like Shaggy Mane, but it is mild, barely flavored, with a very smooth and slippery texture.
Hawk’s Wing is another meaty flavored mushroom, similar to Portobello, very savory.
Aspen Bolete is similar to Porcini without the buttery edge. We remove the pore surface, and discard the stem – the stem contains chemicals that the tops do not (it stains differently than the cap), so we are just using the cap, which is thinner than a King Bolete. It dries well, though grayish. We have never experienced a reaction from these, but we also cook them well.
I found a good sized cluster of Giant Sawgill, and we cut them up to use (too big to cook whole). They have a very bland, slightly sweet flavor, no fungusy edge to them, so I can tolerate the taste very well. The texture is very firm, very much like clams.
I’ve also eaten Floccularia luteovirens, which I refer to as Yellow Shaggy on my mushroom website. I cannot distinguish an identifying flavor in it.
Wine Caps taste like a mushroom to me, no different than Criminis, though many people say they have a richer flavor. And I’ve also had Lactarius deliciosus, and could not distinguish it from other mushrooms in flavor or texture.
To me, the Fried Chicken Mushroom (Lyophyllum decastes and sometimes Lyophyllum loricatum) is also unremarkable as a mushroom. It does hold texture better than some. I did not have it batter fried, but in a soup with vegetables and meat.
A real surprise was finding a new mushroom, identified as Amagaricus Cupreus, which is known as Cinnamon Scorcher, or by the oh, so cute name of Kitty Boots. It has a universal veil that gives it a coppery “boot” on the bottom of a crooked stipe, and a partial veil that leaves a short skirt further up, and a streaky metallic cap. It has features of both Amanita and Agaricus. That one is really GOOD, it has a nutty roasted chicken sort of flavor when cooked in butter, and it takes on a fibrous texture that feels like cooked meat instead of slimy mushroom. This one is a game changer, it is so UNmushroomy!
I’ve consumed many others now, and cannot remember the names of them all, and the ones I cannot remember are for the most part just mushroomy or mild flavored mushrooms that are not distinctive in flavor.
Part of the problem with mushrooms for me is that the essential thing about mushrooms that every mushroom lover raves over, is the very thing that repels me. The fungusy element. The thing that reaches into your nose and tickles your brain saying, “I am MUSHROOM!”. That thing. That is the part I do not like! So the less pronounced that is, the more I like a mushroom.
It has been disappointing – being mycologically challenged like this. Because I read descriptions of mushrooms all the time. They describe the appearance, the odor, and the flavor. I get all excited when I read the descriptions, because they make them sound SOOO INCREDIBLY YUMMY!
I’ve always had somewhat of an encyclopedic mind, so much so that I can recognize many mushrooms and identify them accurately the first time I see them. So those descriptions stick in my head. And they’ve been responsible for some amazing disappointments!
“Fragrant”, “Pleasant”, “Fruity”, and other words are used to describe an odor which, when held to my nose, simply says, “FUNGUS!”. I really wanted it to smell like the description, and it doesn’t. It just smells like laundry left in the washer one too many days during the winter in a damp climate.
Same with the flavor. I really WANT to taste a mushroom that really does taste amazingly delicious. But in the end, (with the exception so far of Morels) they always end up tasting like mushrooms – some have an edge of savory or wonderful flavor, but the mushroom still lurks and takes away the peak of enthusiasm.
Note: Since writing this, I have tasted Shaggy Mane mushrooms, and THAT is the mushroom that for me, is not mushroomy, but truly delicious. I have also tried Kitty Boots, and that one is the best ever, even more amazing than Shaggy Mane.
The one odor that did not disappoint, is “Almond”. I’ve smelled about three or four different kinds of Agaricus mushrooms which smelled of almond, and let me tell you they smell LIKE ALMOND! Sweetly nutty and fruity, they smell absolutely wonderful. The flavor is less enticing, being only lightly almondy, and still possessing the rubbery fungus texture and flavor of other Agaricus mushrooms. But the gorgeous smell means I never tire of finding them!
One day, perhaps I’ll meet the perfect mushroom. One that actually tastes as delicious as the description. But until then, I’ll keep eating them – because they make a huge difference to my health – and I’ll keep growing them and hunting them and learning about them, because the effort to do so has been utterly fascinating, and may eventually prove lucrative.
Remember, if you have sensitivities to mushrooms, not all mushrooms cause the same sensitivities. Many mushrooms also cause sensitivities only if undercooked, or if consumed with alcohol, and mushrooms grown under conifirs are more likely to cause sensitivities than those grown in compost or under hardwoods.
So if you are a mycophile (mushroom lover), go try some new mushrooms and find some new flavor sensations. If you are a mycophobe, then go try some new ones anyway! You may just find that you don’t hate all mushrooms. And one or two might just surprise you.
To purchase spawn or learn about cultivating mushrooms, visit our mushroom store at: RareMushrooms.com
Pornography – The Wildfire Outside Your Door
Burning trash was legal, and there was a burn pit in the yard, beside the house. So I carted the burnables out, and lit a fire. It burned for about an hour, while I watched it, going back and forth to the house to make sure nothing got out of the rock enclosure. I had been taught as a child to not leave a fire unattended unless I was sure of the safety of the enclosure.
A month later, I headed out to use the burn pit again. The ground was drier and it was a warmer day. I had a bit more trash this time, but not that much more. I tossed it in, and lit it. The performance seemed to be repeating itself, so I ran inside to do something quick indoors.
When I came back out, not more than a moment or two later, a small patch of grass was burning outside the pit. I ran over and started stomping, just in time to see another patch light up beside it. The slightly drier ground and the slightly hotter fire had heated the rocks, and the grass that was in the nooks and crannies around the rocks caught fire. I stomped out the first and ran frantically to the second one just as the first popped to life again, and a third began on the opposite side of the pit.
I still thought I could stop it myself, and ran for the kitchen to fill a bucket. When I came back, the fire was twice the size in each patch, and another little patch was sparking to life. The bucket of water squashed two patches! I was going to get this under control, and no one would know, and I’d be able to just go on and never have to confess my embarrassment.
I ran for another bucket. When I got back, the two bits I had squashed were burning merrily again, and the other two sections had grown again, and were spreading toward the houses – mine, and a neighbor. I realized at that point that it was not going to concede to my wishes of not involving anyone else.
I ran for the neighbors, who stuck their heads out and said, “Well, what do you want US to do?”. I ran for the bucket again, hollering, “Call the fire department! And grab a bucket!”. They grumbled, and wandered around outside, mumbling something about where to find a bucket. I tossed one at them and ran back inside. Two more neighbors came to help, while I called the fire department myself. We got a hose going, and managed to keep the fire away from the houses, but by the time the fire department arrived, it had consumed most of the yard, and was about 5 feet from our house on one side, had reached the road on another side, and was a few feet from the property line on the other. The firemen pulled out a hose, sprayed fire retardant on the flames, and they died a sizzling death as though on command.
They did in 5 minutes what I had been gasping with for far longer, and which I could not vanquish even with the help of several neighbors – of course, they had good protective gear, and the right equipment to fight it. The firemen stayed for a while to watch the ground to ensure that no sparks relit in areas that may not have been sufficiently quenched. I heard sizzling sounds in the lawn for many hours afterward, and kept looking out to see whisps of smoke trailing up from under this or that charred bush.
It occurs to me that Pornography is much like that fire. Only bigger. One little bit, nothing serious. But it spreads. And it pops up where you do not expect it to. The addiction can consume a home before someone is aware that it is the culprit, it may spread from one home to another. And neighbors may just be content to let your home burn – even the help of well-meaning friends may not be enough. Neighbors may even be content to let the fire go until it consumes their own home, oblivious to the danger even as it engulfs them! Once the right actions are taken, you need to be watchful to make sure it does not spark to life again.
This was a small yard fire. The flames of Pornography are more like a wildfire, out of control, creating a wind and a roar, and sweeping everything in its path. Inviting it into your home is the equivalent of building a bonfire in your livingroom just because you got bored, and hoping that the fire you started with not do more than warm your toes or let you roast some marshmallows.
Pornography, like the fire in my yard, or like a forest fire, will grow if left unchecked, until it has consumed every life in its path. It will not get tired and just wear itself out in an individual. It will grow and grow until all the good in a person is destroyed. This is what it does. There are no exceptions. It always gets worse if it is not first stopped, and then held at bay.
The progression is inevitable – it is important that this is understood. It may progress slowly, or quickly, but it WILL progress, and it always ends with the same horrors. In earlier eras when it was harder to access and there was less social acceptance of it, the progression took far longer, but in this day when it is on every street corner, accessible in every private cubby, and considered by so many to be nothing shameful, it gallops through a person’s life at an astonishing speed. Generally the further the progression, the less likely a person is to recover, and the more damage they will do to other people around them. Pornography never stays confined to a single person, it spills over and pulls in young people who see the example of the addict, and poisons marriages, families, and friendships as the addict gives to the addiction what they should be giving to real people.
Porn may be assessed on a scale of 1-5 for severity. A person may progress from one phase to another in as little as six months (far less in certain environments), or they may take years – but in our day, it is uncommon for it to take more than two years to progress from one stage to the next.
Stage 1 – Bikini/Underwear shots progressing to nudity. At this stage, confession (to spouse, parents, and anyone harmed by the addict), and help from family (and clergy where available) may be sufficient to help an individual gain control, and revise the standards and behaviors in their life. The individual viewing porn will begin to detach from close relationships, and will generally become more irritable and prone to fault-finding, or temper tantrums.
Stage 2 – Porn involving Straight and Gay Sex (with or without a progression from one to the other), with progression from couples to groups. This stage may begin with straight sex only, but always ends with both categories, and the progression may follow one of several patterns. This stage may include either visual or auditory media, and text only books. If drug abuse is not already a factor, it generally begins well into this stage also (the link between drug addictions and pornography addictions is inseparable – but generally the drug abuse at this stage does not actually involve the porn, rather it is used as a coping mechanism for a life that is going up in flames). At this stage outside help is more likely to be needed, and confession to someone outside the home is essential (clergy or a counselor who is supportive of recovery are most appropriate). A 12 Step Addiction Recovery Program is recommended for recovery for this stage and all subsequent stages.
Recovery is dependent upon the support and aid of those close to them, especially the spouse [or parents for youth], AND upon the efforts of the addict [until they start to try, nothing is effective]. If the spouse is NOT supportive, recovery likelihood is LESS than 20% by the middle of Stage 2.
If the spouse (or parents) IS supportive and helpful, with a commitment and expression of love toward the addict, AND the addict makes a sincere effort, the likelihood of recovery is approximately 85% through the middle of stage 2.
Stage 3 – Sex combined with Violence. This is one of the critical barriers – when a person crosses it, things begin to pick up speed. (It is known that gay sex is ALWAYS violent and abusive, but in stage 2, it is not DEPICTED as such. In stage 3, it IS shown as violent.) When sexual portrayals alone ceases to provide a thrill, this is the next step. Porn encourages an individual to view sex as a purely selfish thing, and when that tendency is magnified, it grows into the intentional desire to harm, and not just the desire to selfishly exploit. The fire is OUT OF CONTROL – it CANNOT be handled quietly inside the privacy of a marriage, or by parents alone attempting to help a child. There will be legal concerns developing through this stage.
Somewhere in this stage, the chance that a person will ever rehabilitate drops to less than 4%, regardless of spousal support of the effort, abuse toward the spouse escalates dramatically, and physical abuse of children may begin if it was not previously present (sexual abuse of the children by the addict is still out of bounds for them – that barrier has not yet been eroded sufficiently).
Stage 4 – Sexual aberrations (Bestiality, Pedophilia, Extreme Drug Enhancement of sexual experience, extreme violence, torture, and other indescribable horrors). The addict has sated themselves, and is now desperate for any variation that will provide the fix.
At this point, other people are NOT safe with the person in the house – abuse further escalates, and children in the home WILL INVARIABLY become sexual abuse victims.
Stage 5 – Sex combined with Murder (First they view, then they do.) This stage begins with Snuff films, and ends with acting them out. When asked how he came to be a mass murderer, Ted Bundy is reported to have said that he found a porn magazine in his stepfather’s closet as a child. Left unchecked, porn leads to murder, in a trail of progression that is known to every prison psychiatrist.
Stage 6 – No Limits. Absolutely no limits.
This is not an exaggeration, nor an attempt to scare people away from porn. It is just exactly this dangerous. I am calm, confident, and absolutely dead serious as I list these phases and the progression of porn. The harm simply cannot be overstated.
So now we know… DON’T IGNORE IT THINKING IT WILL JUST GO AWAY!
To survive in this modern environment where it Porn is EVERYWHERE, one must wear good protective gear, and build good firebreaks, just as one would in fighting a wildfire.
Protective Gear
Protective gear for Pornography is one way to keep it from consuming an individual. Eye protection is especially important, but ear protection can also really help!
So what kinds of protective gear can you don that will help you to keep the harm of Pornography out of yourself, as an individual?
- The company of like-minded people. Hang out with people who have the same goal of avoiding it. Befriend those with good ideals, who understand WHY you want to avoid it. Choose dates who get it, and respect the goals. Life sometimes requires you to be around people who will bring this into your world. You may not be able to escape them – but if you choose good companions when you DO have the choice, it is easier to be strong when you DON’T have the choice. Online, associate with good people, block those who would introduce this harm into your life.
- Create a set of personal standards, and stick to it. This would include things like avoiding entertainment with nudity and sexual content, avoiding music and audio tracks that refer to the same, making sure you maintain good moral standards for yourself, being at home by a reasonable hour in the evening, and avoiding situations where you might be overly tempted to lower your standards. It also includes ACTING on intentions to make a hasty retreat, when things are occurring which are not in line with your standards. It is easy to say you will leave if the movie gets raunchy, but much harder to stand up in the middle of a group of people, and draw attention to yourself as you walk out. But every time you do it, it gets easier.
- Engage in wholesome and uplifting activities. Every GOOD thing you do, from helping a neighbor to attending a clean alcohol-free party, increases your personal strength and helps you build good patterns for living. Every time you laugh at a clean joke, get chills from an absolutely amazing song, or view entertainment that leaves you feeling lifted up and wanting to be better, you build strength. Every time you do something unselfish, choose to do what is right even when it is hard, or bite your tongue and refrain from being cruel, you strengthen that part of yourself that has the power to resist Pornography – because porn is all about selfishness.
- Increase the spiritual activities in your life. These are things that affect you positively, both by helping you WANT to be better, and by exposing you to the influence of Good, and it has far more power than the average person realizes. This is especially helpful for teens – it is perhaps the EASIEST way to become a kinder and morally stronger person. Just be there – where things are all about good, and let it work its magic on you.
- Keep an emergency song on hand. Good and evil cannot exist in the same space at the same time. A song with good lyrics will drive bad thoughts or images out of your head. This strategy can be used to avoid temptation, to get disturbing images out of your head (after accidental exposure), and to keep your thoughts from drifting into areas where they would better not go.
- Don’t go there. Not even once. Never let curiosity overcome your better judgment in this regard. Just once DOES HURT. Every addict started with “Just Once”.
Firebreaks
One of the time honored methods for stopping a wildfire is to create a firebreak. It is a barrier, such as a path of bare earth where there is no fuel for the fire, or a moat filled with water, or some other surface that the fire cannot cross. A firebreak must be sufficiently wide to stop the fire under the current circumstances – this means that when there is no wind, with a small fire, a small firebreak will do. When the fire is large and raging, and driven by a wind, the firebreak must be far wider.
In our day, the fire is monstrous, and raging with immense intensity. It is driven by hard winds and whipped up by ignorant people who stand on the sidelines encouraging you to feel the heat and look at the pretty flames.
To survive this, we must create firebreaks in our lives. They may need to be constructed at home, and at work or at school. They are one of the ways in which parents can help children avoid Pornography and teach them skills to choose to avoid it for themselves.
These firebreaks may involve changing our environment, or they may involve rules or standards for safety. Typically they involve groups of people or environments, and extend outside of the individual. They can include strategies such as:
- A home where computers are only used in public rooms in the home, when other people are home.
- Requiring children and teens to “check out” a computer or cell phone when needed, and check it back in either at night, or when the need has passed. For example, a phone might be checked out for an outing, and checked back in afterward. In either case, keeping computers and cell phones checked in at night helps ensure that kids are not online or texting inappropriately after parents are in bed (this is the number one time at home, when kids will access porn in a home where it is forbidden).
- Eating dinner with the family each night, at the table. This is an immense tool for strengthening a family, and helps develop stronger parent-child relationships.
- Engage in religious observances together with others in your home (family or otherwise). This helps all work together to create a harmonious environment. People who worship together are more likely to support one another in choosing good.
- Strengthen your family in any way you can. This article on the LDS.org site, called The Family: A Proclamation to the World, gives great descriptions to help a family become stronger. It sets a VERY high standard. Don’t worry if you don’t meet the standard. Just pick a thing to work on and build strength in your family. And don’t worry if you are (for example) a single parent, or if other circumstances do not meet the ideal. Just work on what YOU can control. These are also the things a parent can do to help teens have the desire to make good choices – because teens with a strong family support network make better choices.
You may feel safe and think that this all has nothing to do with you. I promise you, you are wrong. It has everything to do with you, and it will sneak in and work its devastation upon some facet of your life at least once – whether it be the divorce of someone close to you, the abuse of someone you love, or the anger and storms of your own teenager, or within your own marriage.
No one is immune. The only ones who are to any degree safe from it are those who make it a thoughtful daily practice to be safe, and to stay safe.
Common Disappointing Finds for Mushroom Hunters
When you head out for Chanterelles and find only Blewits, many mushroom hunters are disappointed. When you go out hoping to find anything edible at all, and there are only broad patches of Sropharia Ambigua, other mushroom hunters are disgusted (even though they have never actually tried them). And of course, when you go out and find nothing, that is the biggest disappointment of all.
Around the common disappointing finds though, there are a host of proliferating species which no one ever actually names. They are frequently encountered by mushroom hunters, as well as hikers and campers, and may even be seen in suburbia, or in downtown urban areas.
So I am taking the time to create this easy reference for many of those finds which deceive the eye until you are right on top of them. It is my hope that this reference will allow you to accurately identify these common, but lesser known species.
- Aquafinis plasticus. A broad transparent stipe, topped with a very small blue cap (or sometimes white cap). This species has only become noticed in the last two decades, and is now considered an invasive species in many areas. It is a very loosely rooted species unless it is well aged, in which case it may be several inches deep in soil, and may have toppled to one side. We recommend removal of the fruiting bodies, which may be discarded in the nearest trash can. It will not stop the random proliferation of the species, but it does help keep other hunters from experiencing the same misdirection.
- Aluminatus canicus. Found less often that it was before the proliferation of Aquafinis plasticus, this species thrives and springs up around warm campfires and is often found along trails in the woods. It is a cylindrical form, which generally has touches of metallic silver. It makes a robust crunching sound when you step on it, which helps you clinch the ID. Removal and disposal is also recommended for this species, for the same reasons as for Aquafinis plasticus.
- Avianacea Fecealus. This species is usually found on other items – often on leaves, fence posts, tree branches, and downed limbs, but may also be found on the ground, and occasionally appears suddenly without notice upon the clothing of unsuspecting mushroom hunters and hikers. It is predominantly white, with touches of gray or gray-brown, and may be either flat and elongated, or it may appear in raised lumps. We do not recommend removal, unless this species has fruited on your personal belongings.
- Arboreatus Autumnal Dropiloides. Known as “The Great Deceiver”. Probably the most prevalent of all disappointing finds, AAD is a species that is extremely rare in the spring, but begins to show toward the end of summer, and increases in frequency through the beginning of winter. Occurring in various shades of orange, red, yellow, pale green, brown, or gray brown, or even a blackish brown, and having a wide variety of sizes and shapes (most of them flat and ovoid), some possessing neatly organized patterns of ribbing, this species is probably responsible for more false raised hopes than any other disappointing species. It may mimic virtually ANY mushroom species. This species is too numerous to control, and with practice, one learns to better distinguish it from legitimate finds, though some fruiting bodies of this species will always look deceptively like Blewits, Chanterelles, Porcini, and even Horse Mushrooms from a distance, and there is just no way to avoid that step closer before you realize you’ve been deceived.
- Golferina Ballinus. First discovered in Scotland, this small white puffball-like species has a consistent size of about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, is evenly spherical, and has evenly spaced depressions covering the surface. It is a very loosely rooted species, and will roll easily if kicked, or hit with a stick. More solid than the average fungus, they can travel long distances when firmly whacked with a solid object. They appear more frequently on lawns, and rarely in the woods, and cluster at the bottom of ponds in some areas. Hitting this species and attempting to knock it into a hole in the ground is apparently such fun that many sporting goods stores sell a specially made long handled mallet just for this purpose.
- Granitus rockii. Prevalent in many regions in fields and forests, this species may appear in a wide range of colors, and may even be more than one color. Often masquerades as small mushrooms, but can also appear from a distance to be a Giant Puffball. Responsible for more stubbed toes than any other species.
- Paperatus kleenexica. Commonly found on roadsides, and near campgrounds, and increasingly found on mountain trails. We have even encountered this one in cow pastures. We consider this to be a particularly disgusting find. Appears in lumps, crumples, or even strung out over several feet, usually white, disintegrates easily in rain but re-solidifies as it dries.
These species account for untold dashed hopes, and no doubt for a fair amount of cursing from dedicated or even casual mushroom hunters. They may also be disappointing for other wildcrafters and harvesters.
So I challenge you to identify these species the next time you are on the trail, or off the trail, or even randomly in surburbia or downtown urban areas.
I Know What Truffles Smell Like
A truffle crossed my path yesterday. A ripe White Oregon Truffle. Perhaps an overripe one… Maybe an underripe one (though the color was developed as it is supposed to be). I do not know at this point. I am not a lover of fungus and had never seen, much less smelled a truffle, before yesterday. But as the question of describing the smell of truffles is one that is asked over and over, I thought I’d have a go at describing the odor, for anyone who wonders what a truffle smells like.
I cannot speak for ALL truffles, of course. But this is an approximation of the smell of this one.
Take 1 pair of old gym socks which have been worn by a teenager who has been wearing his shoes without socks for at least three weeks and then decided to put on a pair of socks and sweat in them for four days.
Dip the toe in vodka.
Wrap it around a piece of meat that has been left out to age until it is overripe and then halfway roasted.
Put it in your fridge and close the door for at least 4 hours.
Open the fridge door again, and breathe deeply.
This is what this truffle smelled like.
Sharply revolting.
Fortunately, after smelling this one, I had the opportunity to smell a fresh ripe truffle. Two, actually – one black, one white (lest one esteem us to be racist, we are fair in our sampling!).
It smells somewhat of chocolate – the same kind of sweet, mellow and rich odor, only not entirely so.
VERY STRONGLY SCENTED!!
I put them in the fridge to ripen, just as instructed. I knew when they were ripe. The whole kitchen smelled of truffle. Opening the fridge released it into the entire house.
I now have truffle butter, and the butter never even came out of the wrapper, and did not contact the truffle at all. Seriously.
I don’t think I’m a real fan of truffles, but they do smell nice when they are not overripe and fermenting, as the first one was.
The overpowering smell of them does enlighten me as to why truffles are used sparingly. They simply overwhelm everything they get near.
Of course, I am NOT a lover of mushrooms. So my opinion on the matter may be completely irrelevant. I have discovered a few mushrooms that I can tolerate, and one or two that I actually LIKE as far as flavor is concerned. The texture still grosses me out. But the smell of a fermenting truffle was a new level of revolting for me. Underneath all those nasty smells, lurks an odor that holds the promise of having associated with something NOT revolting, at least briefly (and the fresh ripe truffles did prove this).
Historically, female pigs were used to find truffles. The truffle, it is said, has an odor that is reminiscent of male pig pheromones, which makes the female pig hone in on it, dig it up, and consume it with delight. Not so sure what that says about how a sow treats a boar… But anyway, I think it says a lot about the odor of a truffle, and if the boar smells like he rolled in chocolate I’m not sure I can blame her for her delight about it, but I suspect he does not! A boar in rut just isn’t likely to be the most pleasant smelling thing in the world, and I suspect he smells more like the first truffle than the successors. After smelling that truffle, I am thinking the boar in rut is something akin to the smell of that coyote that rolled under the car after I hit it on Highway 30 in Wyoming… RANKLY OFFENSIVE. If you stuff a rotting truffle up inside the venting of someone’s car, that would prove a good practical joke – they’d be at the mechanic demanding that he find whatever died in there!
Learning about so many mushrooms (we now have more than 100 species of mushroom spawn for sale) has been interesting. And truffles have been one of the most unpleasant, and one of the more pleasant (though overpowering) of mushroom scents in all that we have collected.
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