Oak logs we inoculated last Autumn with Pearl Oyster dowel spawn are finally fruiting.

 

 

 

A little butter, soy and sea salt, some simmering and dinner will be served!  I wonder how figs go with mushrooms?

Soon we should also be harvesting many Shiitake, Chicken of the Woods and Reishi.  Found this wild bunch of Reishi growing on a Maple tree and its roots last week.

 

   

Reishi are known for medicinal properties and is bitter.  Usually taken as a tea or extract, it will help fix just about whatever one may need and as a immune system modulator.  I make alcohol extracts from it. 


 

How do the pearl oyster taste?  That dish looks yummy!

Hard to describe, stronger mushroom flavor than the common button.  Chewy like meat.  I let that pan full simmer for about an hour then turned up the heat to reduce the liquid and brown them some.  Ate my fill and added the rest to a pot of veggy beef soup. 

They look yummy for sure!
I use to pick wild mushrooms in forests of different kinds back in Europe a lot. About 2 buckets per trip, 6-8 hours.
We were frying them, boiling, preserving. The trick was to tell a good one from fake.

Nice Charlie, your gonna have some good eating when those shittake and chicken of the woods start fruiting. I enjoy picking mushrooms, and i also grew them years ago. Many mushrooms are medicinal, even if they are edible types. Just gotta know how to identify them so you don't poison yourself. Reishi is one of the most important medicinals in Asian traditional medicine, it and other species of useful Ganoderma (the Genus of Reishi) are found growing all around the world.

Mike in Hanover, VA