Culture
Mushrooms are Having a Moment. Here’s How to Become *Mush* More Mycological this Season.
From closet mushrooms to foraging fungi, mushrooms are incredibly versatile
Rich, earthy tones amid a landscape of scattered leaves. Savory meat substitutes and delicious brain food. Fly agaric fashion and mushroom forays.
Mushrooms are incredibly versatile. From popular science to your local supermarket, these fungal fruiting bodies capture our attention. Mushrooms can break down harmful plastics, improve focus, and form satisfying meat substitutes. They can offer a psychedelic whimsy and gender non-conforming edge to fashion.
Perhaps most fascinating of all is that some mushrooms only grow in the wild. These species becon us to step away from our screens and encourage us instead to spend time surveying the soil, searching for unfamiliar colors and textures everywhere we go.
Here’s some ideas to help you become mush more mycological this season.
1. Take a mushroom deep dive
Learn about mushrooms! This may be one of the most accessible ways to engage with mushrooms if you have a busy schedule and need to rekindle your curiousity about the natural world.
Find a local mushroom identification field guide, or read one of these Marvelous Mushroom Books for New Mycologists. Many budding mycophiles enjoy Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life and Netflix’s technicolor documentary Fantastic Fungi. The Fantastic Fungi website even offers a virtual reality Mush Room that expands on topics discussed in the film.
If you want to stay up-to-date with emerging topics in the world of mushrooms but don’t have time to hit the books, try podcasts. I especially enjoy the podcasts Welcome to Mushroom Hour and Mushroom Revival, which follow updates in mushroom research and introduce listeners to a variety of mushroom-y topics.
Looking for the intersection between mushrooms and the humanities? Learn about Queer Mushroom Theory, delve into mushroom folklore, or visit the Mushroom Color Atlas, a visual guide to mushrooms used in natural dyes and pigments.
As you learn about mushrooms, remember to stay curious!
2. Use iNaturlist on a mushroom foray
A ‘mushroom foray’ is just a fancy term for a walk out in nature where you look for mushrooms. This foray could take place in your backyard, along sidewalk medians, at a local park, or in wilderness areas.
I use the community science app iNaturalist to partially identify my findings and share what I’ve found with other mycophiles or mushroom-lovers.
While mushrooming is available at any of these locations, I have found the most mushrooms along riparian wilderness areas. Los Angeles is not especially renowned for mushrooms, so I visit wilderness areas with lakes and creeks (like Franklin Canyon) when I want to spend a day off looking or mushrooms. Always know the rules of the area in which you are foraging. Some protected areas don’t allow foraging, and it’s best to know these rules before you go.
If these areas are not accessible to you, you might need to do some additional exploring. Is there a park in your area that has especially wet grass? Are there any old trees in your area that might be a good snack for parasitic mushrooms? Have any stray mushlings popped up in your potting soil?
Another option might be connecting with other mycophiles in your community (see #4, ‘Meet other mycophiles.’) If you can’t access wilderness areas on your own, you might meet someone who shares your interest who might split travel costs.
Remember to STAY SAFE when mushrooming. DON’T stray from trails and make sure you have AllTrails or a similar map to guide you should you get lost. NEVER eat anything you are not 100% sure about.
Bat Vardeh of the Los Angeles Mycological Society uses the acronym BOLETE to remind foraging groups how they can stay safe while foraging:
B: Be aware of your surroundings.
O: Only forage in areas where it is permitted.
L: Let someone know where you will be foraging.
E: Extra water and snacks.
T: Toxic lookalikes? Always make sure to double-check what kind of mushroom you found.
E: Eat only what you are 100% sure about.
I don’t have enough experience to feel comfortable eating foraged mushrooms just yet, so I focus on photographing and documenting what I found so that I can keep learning!
If you don’t yet have the time or the ability to forage outside, you may also find high quality cultivated mushrooms by visiting a farmer’s market or an Asian supermarket.
You might even grow your own mushrooms at home!
3. Eat your own spray-and grow kit
Just as you can start your own garden at home, you can start growing mushrooms indoors. Here’s what to consider when buying a mushroom kit, and here are some different spray-and-grow kits of varying quality:
- Back to the Roots: $13 — $25
- North Spore: $30
- Michigan Mushroom Company: $33
- Forest Origins: $26
- Root Mushroom Farm: $27
My Back to the Roots mini kit only gave me one flush, but if you have access to a garden you may want to try burying yours. This may extend the life of your grow kit. Different spray and grow kits may also offer different qualities of mushroom mycelium strains, which in turn may affect how many flushes or harvests you get out of one kit.
4. Meet other mycophiles
Mushrooming is better with friends. Join your local mycological society or search for foraging groups in your area. Follow mushroom art accounts and attend mushroom festivals around the world.
I’ve found every amateur mycologist I’ve met so far extremely engaging. Mushroom fans are always ready to get their hands a bit dirty. They’re often waiting for their next adventure.
I’m a person who has a lot of trouble maintaining friendships and meeting new people. When I’m out of my element, I even struggle to talk with strangers. But mushroom people are extremely welcoming.
Go to mycological gatherings and see who you meet there! At the very least, you’re likely to learn about another facet of the mushroom world. You might even find foraging buddies!
5. Grow slowly
I have a bad habit of wanting to be perfect at everything right away, but mushrooming halts perfectionism in its tracks.
Mycology is still a relatively new field of research supported by the work of mushroom self-starters. The very act of heading into the garden or trekking through the woods to find mushrooms means it’s likely you’ll get more than a little mud on your shoes.
So like a mushroom, it’s best to remain curious, and grow bit by bit.
Like a mushroom, I grow slowly. I began exploring recipes for all the mushrooms available at my local markets, and I photograph any stray mushies I encounter on the daily. I learn about mushrooms and natural history in my spare time. I joined the Los Angeles Mycological Society this year, and I’m striving to get outdoors more often during Southern California’s too-short wet season so that I can find inky caps and oak-loving elfin saddles nestled among crunchy leaves.
I’m not trying to win an award for ‘Best Forager’ or make mushrooms a part of my career. Instead, I want to engage with my curiosity. I want to use mushrooms as a lens to explore the natural world.
I seek to become mush more mycological.
Since I’ve started to pay more attention to fungi, I’ve noticed a shift in the way that I look at decay. I’ve failed twice to start a vegetable garden on my soggy apartment balcony, but I DID happen to grow several species of fungi instead (oops.)
Somehow, my interest in fungi overpowers the not-so-helpful idea that everything I touch dies, so I might as well not bother to try new things. My curiousity about what I did manage to cultivate, and what fungal spores must have already been present in the soil to make that happen overcomes my self criticism so that I am able to see beauty in these mistakes.
I’d like to think that diving deeper into the mushroom community might help me continue this perspective. Perhaps becoming mush more mycological, or diving into whatever topic brings you childlike curiosity will help you learn to be kinder to yourself.
Perhaps we can all learn to see the forest for the mushrooms.
Happy galavanting!
