Meeting March 3

The next meeting will be on Monday, March 3^rd in Room 101 at the Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. 

Speaker Nancy Mladenoff, topic Mushrooms In Contemporary Art

Nancy Mladenoff is a professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her art practice incorporates painting, photography and installation. Recent work has revolved around painting on mushrooms and installing small sculptural forms in the vicinity of mushrooms and photographing the results. Solo exhibitions include Nature and Other Excuses at the Wendy Cooper Gallery in Chicago and New Photographs at the Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor, Czech Republic and Lademoen Kusnstnerverksteder in Trondheim, Norway. She has participated in recent group exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Germany and the UK.

Mladenoff’s lecture, Mushrooms in Contemporary Art, will address her own work and the artwork of other contemporary artists who use mushrooms as subject matter in their work.

 

Pre-Meeting Dinner

Our usual custom of treating the speaker to dinner will be observed.  We will meet at 5 pm, at a location  to be determined.  Watch for an email with the location.

 

Pre-meeting Foray

We may take our guest speaker on a foray on Sunday, March 2^nd.  Most likely location is Stelzer Park, but watch for an email with details.

Help Wanted

Newsletter Editor Needed

By Dave Grubb

I have been doing it for a long time, and feel that it is time to hand it over to someone else.

It might be easier to find someone to take it over if the job was divided up.  The actual "editing" is only one part of the job.  Since there do not seem to be any members who are interested in writing, I find that I must either write everything, or gather material from other sources.

There are essentially five parts of the job:

1. Maintain a list of members and print mailing labels.

2. Gather information about meetings and events, and collect or write other items of interest.

3. Put together the document, edit, spell check, and proofread.

4. Get the copies made, fold, stamp, label, and mail.

5. Convert the document to a web page and post it on our web site.

Each of these could potentially be done by one or more different people.

There is another possibility, which is to use a combination of the web site and email to replace the paper newsletter.

I question whether we really need to publish a monthly paper newsletter.  The cost of both copying and postage has been increasing steadily.  The paper publication is a major expense, and I am not convinced that it is worthwhile.

I know that people like to read the paper version, but I am getting less comfortable about plagiarizing material from copyrighted publications to fill up several pages each month.  I believe that the web site could serve that purpose better by providing links to items of interest.

We have a few members (only two or three) that do not use email or have Internet access.  The rest of the members could get the basic information about meetings and other events via email or the web site at almost no cost to the club.  We already depend on email for foray announcements, since they are rain-dependent, and cannot usually be planned far enough in advance to be published in the paper newsletter.

 

Volunteer(s) Needed

Speaking of those members who  do not have email, they would appreciate being notified by phone when a foray is planned.  We need a volunteer who is willing to watch for the Foray Flash emails, and pass the word along by phone to a couple of members.  To volunteer, contact Dave.

 

Email List

And speaking of the email list, remember that you are responsible for your own entry on the email list.  If you want to be added, go to:

lists.igc.org/mailman/listinfo/sdmyco and fill out the form.  Save the information you get back as confirmation, as you will need it if you want to change your email address later.

 

Web Special

As an example of what can be done better on the Internet, there is a new feature on our web site.  I will be posting links to mushroom news that I found while looking for material, but could not fit into the newsletter.  There are also some links associated with the articles in this issue.

If you run across interesting items, send me links to add at: .

DavidGrubb at sbcglobal dot net

What’s Cooking?

Fungi as Food

By Dave Grubb

In another plug for the BAMS discussion group on Yahoo, here is a sampling from an exchange on the subject of Native American use of mushrooms as food. 

It all started when someone asked what was known about the subject.  I happen to have an interest in Native American food and cooking, so I went to my library and shared what I could find.

"American Indian Food and Lore" by Carolyn Niethammer has a recipe for puffballs.  This is a good source for information and recipes from the southwest, and has a good bibliography in the back.  It is a relatively inexpensive paperback book.  She says that the Zunis gathered and ate puffballs.  She adds that there are many folktales associated with eating mushrooms.

"Spirit of the Harvest" by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs includes 3 mushroom recipes.  Cox asserts that many of the plains tribes gathered a number of species and dried them for storage.  The specific mushroom mentions are: Oneida sautéed morels, Chippewa duck stuffed with wild rice and mushrooms, and Blackfoot and Sioux, mushrooms sautéed and also added to soups and stews.

"New Native American Cooking" by Dale Carson.  Modern recipes with traditional ingredients.  A few recipes use mushrooms, but no real information about traditional uses.

"Native Indian Wild Game, Fish, and Wild Foods Cookbook" edited by David Hunt.  Recipes from the Lovesick Lake Native Women’s Association.  Mushrooms are used in many recipes.  Only two kinds are specifically named; morels and puffballs.

Some possible clues to native American use of mushrooms can be found in traditional Mexican cooking, where the older oral traditions survive.  See "My Mexico" by Diana Kennedy.  It has a chapter on mushrooms which includes a description of a mushroom hunt.  She has recipes for lobster and coral mushrooms, Lactarius indigo, and Amanita caesarea, and mentions a number of other species.

That prompted a number of replies from people with first-hand knowledge.  Darvin DeShazer of SOMA wrote that the Hoopa Indians in northern CA have a long tradition of eating matsutake.  Kitty & Creek Norris, from Willets, CA responded "I can confirm this, my reference would be my Hupa friends. The Yurok also enjoy Matsutake. I am told that they do not eat any others. They refer to them as Tanoaks."

Debbie Viess, AKA "amanitarita" reported "I have also heard that the Pomo only eat the coccora, and only the golden brown one at that."

pgwerner replied "There is actually quite a bit of literature indicating that California natives consumed quite a few species. There's a book on Pomo plant names that mention something like ten species that were consumed by the Pomo, not just coccora, but porcini, chanterelles, and at least one Lactarius. It’s also highly likely that these were among the wild foods that the Pomo would trade with the Russians at Fort Ross. All of which means that history of mushroom collecting on the Sonoma Coast has some very deep roots - too bad land managers there can't seem to figure that out!

Harvesting of matsutake (called "tan oak mushrooms" by the natives) by the Humboldt County tribes (including the Yurok and Karok, not just the Hoopa) is a living tradition, still widely practiced, and very well-documented. In the 1990s, the commercial matsutake harvest was actually closed to non-natives in a certain part of, I think, Klamath National Forest over concerns that areas that the Karok had been harvesting for generations were being heavily hit by commercial pickers."

And finally, Jason Hauser sent a link to a collection of information on the University of Wyoming web site. 

w3.uwyo.edu/~fungi/Indian.pdf

Some edited excerpts include:

•The Lilloet inhabited the Rocky Mountains in Canada and used mushrooms extensively for food including: Tricholoma gambosum, T. populinum, Pleurotus ostreatus, Hygrophorus gliocyclus, and Morchella sp. They also used black tree lichen for food.

•The Nlaka'pamux lived in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and had an extensive recorded ethnobotany which includes four mushrooms used as food sources: Tricholoma gambosum, T. populinum, Pleurotus ostreatus and Cantharellus cibarius.

•The Omaha and Poncho are closely related horticulturists who lived in Nebraska and traded with tribes who occupied what is now Wyoming and Colorado. They grew corn and they ate corn smut which they called Wahaba hthi (corn sores).

•The Omaha Indians cut large puffballs into chunks and fried them in sunflower oil, bear oil or deer tallow like meat. They also peeled, diced and then boiled them in water with salt, grease and bits of meat as seasoning to make a tasty puffball soup. The Omaha also ate morels (Mikai hthi or star sores).

•The Iroquois relished Agaricus mushrooms. They boiled them after peeling and dicing, just as some still do today.  They also  fried puffballs and added them to soups

•The Salish ate three types of mushrooms Tricholoma populinum, T. magnivelara and Pleurotus ostreatus.

•The Zunis dried puffballs for winter use.

•The Kiowa have a published ethnobotany that records they used both puffballs (ai-pee-o-pa) and lichens.

•The Dakota Indians ate young sulfur shelf and avoided those found on ash trees, owing to their bitterness.  They were sliced and then boiled for more than thirty minutes before they were eaten.

•The Hopi avoided all brackets because they associated them with the malignant growths of cancer and feared contamination. The Hopis also enjoyed corn smut.

Species List for Jan 12

Jan 12 - Flinn Springs

Agaricus xanthodermus
Amanita novinupta ("blusher")
Armillaria mellea
Bolbitius vitellinus
Boletus chrysenteron
Boletus dryophilus
Collybia dryophila
Coprinus atramentarius
Cortinarius sp.
Geastrum sp.
Hypomyces chrysospermum
Lactarius alnicola
Lepista (Clitocybe) nuda
Marasmius sp.
Omphalotus olivascens
Paneolus sp.
Pluteus cervinus
Russula sp. (white)
Stereum sp.
Trametes versicolor
Tricholoma sp.

 

Feb 3 - Dos Picos

Amanita (lepidella) magniverrucata
Boletus chrysenteron
Boletus erythropus
Collybia dryophila
Coprinus atramentarius
Entoloma ferruginans
Lactarius argillaceifolius
Lactarius rufulus
Lepiota (Macrolepiota) rachodes
Lepista (Clitocybe) nuda
Lycoperdon sp.
Marasmius plicatulus
Naematoloma (Stropharia) aurantiaca
Omphalina ericetorum
Omphalotus olivascens
Peziza sylvestris
Pleurotus ostreatus
Russula sp.
Tremella mesenterica
Tyromyces sp.
Volvariella speciosa

 

(Fair list coming in next issue)

Coming Events

April Meeting

Monday, April 7^th, Casa Del Prado, Balboa Park, 6:30 PM.

Our speaker will be our own myco-star Elio Schaechter.

 

May Potluck

Monday, May 5 (Hey, Cinco de Mayo!).  This is another chance to show us all what you can do in the kitchen.  Location to be determined. Firecrackers and tequila optional.

 

Morel Foray(s)?

In some prior years, we have held a morel foray in the Barton Flats area of the Santa Ana mountains.  Some years we have done a joint foray with LAMS, and other years we have done an SDMS trip the week after the LAMS trip.  It is usually held in early May.

If there is interest, and some volunteers to organize, this would be a good year to go.  The wet winter should result in a good crop of morels in our favorite spots.

 

Ensenada Mushroom Festival

There is usually a mushroom festival in Ensenada in late May or early June.  Some years, we have organized a group trip.  Watch for more information as it becomes available.

 

Summer Mushrooming

August is Mushroom Month in Colorado and Arizona.  When the monsoon rains are good in late July and early August, it brings out a fantastic array of fungi at higher elevations.  The White Mountains (Northeast of Phoenix) can be very good hunting.  Anywhere in the rocky mountains in Colorado is also worth a trip.  More on the summer forays and festivals in the next issue.

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SDMS Information