My Mushroom Foraging Class

I personally am too scared to forage for mushrooms in the wild. I have heard too many stories about mushroom experts dying by eating a look-alike poisonous mushroom by mistake. The risk factor seems too high for the payoff.

However, I do love the idea of taking a mushroom foraging class with an expert. And no, we are not eating what we are foraging though there is a cooking component of the class and it does involve mushrooms. But farmed mushrooms. Safe ones.

I do have a connection to mushroom farming. The illustrator of my book, Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World, Robert Sae-Heng grew up on a farm in Mexico where his family grew mushrooms! Is that not an insane coincidence? So, of course, I had to add a mushroom farm set in Mexico to our book.

My mushroom foraging class was taught by Amanda Dye at Powisset Farm in Dover, MA. It was fortunate that it rained the day before so the farm’s natural wilderness was teaming with mushrooms of all colors and varieties.

In fact, the very range of mushrooms fascinates me. They come in so many different shapes and sizes.

Mushrooms also have a variety of textures! This one looks feathery. The orange one on top looks rubbery.

I really enjoyed my class with Amanda Dye. I learned just enough to know that I need to learn more before I will ever eat a wild mushroom. Right now, I will get my mushrooms from the supermarket but that doesn’t mean that I check the ground on my hikes to be on the lookout for mushrooms to snap a photo in the hope of identifying it.

How about you? Do you like to eat mushrooms? Do they grow where you live? Thanks for sharing!

p.s. Related posts:

Edible Plants & Foraging In My Neighborhood

Picture Books to Inspire Foraging

When It Rains It Spores — Fun Fungi Books

9 Children’s Books about Farms and Farm Workers

Picture Books Celebrating Farmers’ Markets

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We Sing from the Heart: How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court

ALSC Notable Children’s Book
Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children
California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book
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