Foraging and cooking Shaggy Mane mushrooms

Shaggy manes are an interesting and delicious mushroom species, and I happened to find some recently, so here are my photos and thoughts about the experience!

If you're not already familiar with this common fungi, you can still see at a glance why it's called "shaggy mane"! This photo I took last week shows the classic colour and texture of the mushroom. They can show up alone, in pairs, or in groups.

This shot shows some adult shaggy mane mushrooms (top and right), and some older examples in the bottom left, showing fully-opened caps and black sticky goo. When shaggy manes get old, they begin to auto-digest, turning their caps into black goo, from the outside edge and moving inward. Harvesting them also begins this auto-digestion process within a few hours, so they have to be cooked right away!

Melting into slime helps the mushroom spread its spores, but it renders it inedible to humans! That's why we always look for young shaggy manes, preferably just emerging from the ground.

Here are some just beginning to reach maturity. They had probably been above ground for 1 or 2 days when I took the photo. This is a good example of shaggy manes worth harvesting. I probably wouldn't take any that were more mature than these ones. Once the cap begins to open and raise, the edges start to darken, and then it's too late.

The following shot shows a delicious patch of shaggy manes just emerging:

Ahhh, this is what I was looking for! I harvested most of the cluster, leaving a few of the smallest. There were plenty of fully-mature specimens nearby, so I know there are already lots of spores to guarantee another crop next year.

Note: As with foraging any plant from Nature, the same goes for fungi... never eat anything unless you're certain it's safe. If you're not sure, don't eat it! Just observe it, and photograph it, and do more research.

Preparing shaggy manes

I washed the mushrooms and chopped off the stipes (analogous to stems on plants). They're dense and firm at this point. The larger and more mature specimens were slightly opened up, and had developing gills. They smelled very much like typical white mushrooms found at supermarkets. Extremely fresh! This bodes well for a tasty meal.

While a frying pan and oil heated up, I sliced each mushroom in half:

Next, each piece was dipped in egg yolk, rolled in a blend of flours and seasonings, then tossed into the hot pan. They cook very nicely. Out came these delicious nuggets:

My wife @MediKatie and I were both impressed. Very tasty, and a superior texture to many mushrooms we've tried before. The crispy ones were great, but so were the juicy ones!

We've already had shaggy manes again since then, frying them bare with some onions and garlic. Fantastic!

And the funny, unique twist about this particular delicacy? Because they auto-digest once harvested, you can't buy them in stores! And except in perhaps a few exclusive restaurants around the world, you can't have them prepared for you. The only way most of us will ever have a chance to enjoy the shaggy mane mushroom is if we forage it ourselves.

A mushroom that is superior - in the pan and on the plate - to anything found in stores, but with the drawback that you have to harvest it from Nature for free.

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