Friday, September 25, 2015

Humungous Fungus

At two o'clock this morning, I ran into an unexpected bounty, a giant puffball mushroom (Calvatia gigantea), while doing my regular walkabout at work:




The giant puffball is edible while it is immature and a uniform white color, when it ages it turns brown and emits a cloud of spores. The puffball is a boon to the beginning mushroom hunters because the large ones have no poisonous lookalikes... well, there's one, according to Wildman Steve Brill:


Caution: Beware the false giant puffball, a.k.a. the poison goalpost fungus, common in grassy fields throughout much of the Earth.

This mushroom is so deadly, merely inhaling the spores rearranges your brain's neural synapses, making you race endlessly back and forth across a field, stopping occasionally to jump up and down and cheer or curse insanely, never resting until death from exhaustion ensues. Poisoning is so virulent, relatives of the victim, especially the parents, have been known to succumb as well!



This particular puffball was as large as my cranium, and bore an uncanny resemblance:




Puffballs have a mild flavor, comparable to that of a typical white button mushroom. They go well sauteed in a little butter or olive oil. This particular beauty is large enough to act as the central component of three meals. Of course, I'm not the first guy on the puffball beat, but I'm happy to continue the proud puffball tradition.

7 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Puffballs are very user friendly, too!

Like a big bunch of tofu, only better.
~

Chickpea said...

It's flipping huge! So what's on the menu mushroom risotto perhaps?

Smut Clyde said...

Did you carve it?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-swq5zI4gjWE/TdMha2_18rI/AAAAAAAACFk/5lE0yEVHb5U/s1600/puffball1.jpg

Robert Mcneilly said...

Added puffball pieces to spaghetti sauce. Maybe too much. It soaked up ALL the sauce.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Like a big bunch of tofu, only better.

That's a good analogy... tofu with a mild hint of champignon.

It's flipping huge! So what's on the menu mushroom risotto perhaps?

That's a great idea. The first round was sauteed and served on a toasted American-style biscuit. Second round was sauteed and wrapped in phyllo pastry. I have enough for a third meal...

Did you carve it?

Blast, a missed opportunity!

mikey said...

I dunno, I think you're crazy. Not for the foraging - that's fun and provides a sense of self-reliance. But for foraging something where a mistake can kill you in a hard, slow, brutal way?

That seems unnecessary, at least until it is necessary....

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Added puffball pieces to spaghetti sauce. Maybe too much. It soaked up ALL the sauce.

That's hilarious! I have heard they're a little spongy. I threw a couple of pieces in a soup today but they were small and didn't take over.

I dunno, I think you're crazy. Not for the foraging - that's fun and provides a sense of self-reliance. But for foraging something where a mistake can kill you in a hard, slow, brutal way?

The beauty of puffballs is that they're foolproof. A puffball that size has no toxic lookalikes, and the Amanita mushrooms that look like small puffballs are apparent in cross-section. Thunder has this topic covered well.