The October meeting will be held Tuesday evening October 3rd at the Museum of Natural History at 7:30 PM.
Rich Therrien our vice-president in charge of programs has been visiting in Germany with his wife Anne and they have just returned. Perhaps he will have some interesting mushroom stories to tell us about and pictures to show us of his trip. Let's all be surprised.
The November meeting will be held November 7th at the Museum of Natural History at 7:30 PM in one of the meeting rooms (follow the crowd).
At the last meeting members were presented with the financial accounting of the Foray. We realized a a very small profit even though it was one of the lowest costing Forays in our society's existence. Because the monsoon rains were late in arriving the mushroom hunting was a little sparse but we were surprised at the number of species that were found (70 in all). A surprising 14 species were new for our comprehensive List. This brings our list total to 706 species or varieties. Our Foray tasting session was not held because we had so few edibles available.
September mushroom collecting has been better than we expected because the monsoons were late but effective. We usually find an abundance of Lactarius but this year hardly any were reported. Colorado produced an abundance of chanterelles according to the Triggs who went there camping. Carolyn reported bringing home all the Boletes she could carry and leaving many more for other collectors. A family from Czechoslovakia collected five boxes of Boletes. It is very clear that had we had the Foray in September we could have had an abundance of fungi for the tasting session.
Ruth reports that she has been receiving a number of interesting calls from people who want to know more about the mushrooms they have been seeing or finding in their yards. One gentleman brought two large beautiful Agaricus bitorquis (formerly known as A. Rodmanii). that had grown in his new yard that had been enriched with compost from someplace in Oklahoma. He had grown up in Italy and thought they were edible but decided that he should find out first. He called the University and they gave him Ruth's phone number. Ruth told him that these same mushrooms were now available in the grocery stores as Portobello mushrooms. He acted as though he was going out directly and buy as many of them as he could find.
Another call she received was from the Poison Center asking for her to identify a purplish mushroom that some very adventurous person had eaten and been sickened by. She assumed it was probably a Cortinarius and that it probably would not kill him. lie was to have brought it to her for identification to be sure that he would not die from eating it, but he never showed. She assurned that when he learned that he wasn't going to need a liver transplant to survive that he didn't really care whether he knew what it was. Some people will eat anything.
John Rahart looked for NMMS for 2 years before finding it. This year after hunting with our group, he has been able to see E. edulis in NM, and become acquainted for the first time with A. mellea, C. comatus, and B. barrowsii. Peggy Gorenson and the Buskirks have visited his 4 acre home and garden in Belen. The garden includes many varieties of eggplant, lush growing carrots, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, lettuce, bush beans, indian corn, spinach, many different fruit trees, etc. The shared harvest was greatly enjoyed on the Gorenson and Buskirk tables.
The Pecos project has continued after being temporarily discontinued due to the very dry weather earlier in the year. We do not have a report on the project as of this newsletter but expect that we will hear something from the participants at the meeting Tuesday night.
Just after Friday night service at Rio Rancho Jewish Center, I asked Aaron Straser, the spiritual leader, if he had picked or eaten wild mushrooms in Poland when he was a child before the holocaust disrupted his life. He seemed transported to the time when his mother made a delicious potato soup with fresh wild mushrooms. I got Arora's All that the Rain Promises and showed him the picture of Armillarea mellea. After carefully observance, he stated, "No, that's not the one." I flipped over to Boletus edulis from New Mexico and with no hesitation he said "That's the one!" The next picking of B. edulis was shared with the Straser's. His wife Judy made the soup using a recipe similar to the following recipe.
The Potato Soup
Recipe adapted from Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book of Fine Old Recipes.
~c4x