Featured Fungus: Shaggy Mane
By Dave Layton
The Shaggies in these photos were found on April 15th - 17th 2024 at the beginning of morel season. Normally their first season of the year is in late May. This is my first time seeing them in April. Now the only months when I haven’t seen them are January, February and March. As much as I love to find these beautiful tasty mushrooms, I wonder about the ramifications of their emergence so much earlier than in the past if global warming makes it a regular occurrence. Lawrence Millman states in his book “Fungipedia'' that an advantage for morels and other cool weather loving discomycetes to emerge in the spring is that “---they don’t need to compete with those other fungi, which are usually basidiomycetes with far more aggressive mycelia.” I doubt that shaggy manes will encroach much on morels, but, if they’re active before their regular season, what other woodland fungi or microbes may be also?
Okay enough doom and gloom. I found the first of four populations of shaggies when I turned away from the last of many potential morel trees that had skunked me so far. I decided that I’d try cooking them in new ways since they arrived during a new month. First I simply sliced some and added them to chicken with potatoes and vegetables that had 15 - 20 minutes left to bake - not bad. I sautéed the remaining shaggies on that same day then mixed most of them into white sauce that went with leftover chicken and potatoes the next day - pretty darn good. However, I’ve often done that with them in the past.
I got another batch on the 17th and decided to experiment with the griddle built into our new stovetop. I brushed light olive oil on one giant shaggy and put the griddle on medium. I cooked it in strips with the oiled side down then brushed oil on the gills and stem while the outside cooked to light brown. Then I turned them over and cooked the gills to light brown. I knew I was onto something but the olive oil and shaggy flavors clashed a little. Sally was making fried rice so I brushed all the largest remaining shaggies with two parts vegetable oil and 1 part sesame oil then I filled the griddle with slices frying them as before. The result was delicious and destined to disappear if someone couldn’t show a little restraint. Thank goodness restraint was shown! The remaining mushrooms were even better when added to Sally’s fried rice.
It's raining around here again today on the 18th. There’s likely to be more shaggies tomorrow. Maybe I'll try another new way of cooking them before I get too concerned about not finding morels. I’m not that great at finding morels anyway.
