October wouldn’t be normal without our hearing from those who
have discovered some giant puffballs during their outdoor
excursions. Most often the caller will want to know of the
edibility of these unusual and beautiful fungi (FUN-ji). Yes
they are edible if they are pure white when cut through. The
least little yellow coloring will render them bitter to the taste
and not very palatable.
Surely we too have eaten puffballs in the past – sparingly –
and must admit that in a lean mushroom fall they are better than
nothing! I feel that many people are so pleased to find the
globular, edible giant puffball and eat at least a part of it
simply because they are so unmistakable in their identification.
Who could possibly confuse one for something else that might be
poisonous?
One of Charlotte’s former students in a mushroom class
replied, when asked how she prepared them, "I dip thin
slices of the puffball in a milk-egg mixture, dredge them in soda
cracker crumbs and finally fry them lightly in a little
butter." Charlotte then asked her how they tasted, and her
reply was, "like fried soda cracker crumbs!"
Yesterday afternoon, fully expecting to find few fleshy
mushrooms in one of our favorite mushroom woods, we pretty much
resigned ourselves to enjoying either the many woody bracket
fungi, the tiny, fairly abundant orange mycenas (my-SEE-nas) or
the small puffballs, all growing on rotting tree stumps or trunks
lying upon the ground.
Most of the small clustered puffballs we came upon were less
than one inch in diameter, species that we’ve never tried eating,
even though they are listed as edible in the field guides.
Of all the fungi in the world, few are as easy to identify and
as safe to eat as the large puffball, Calvatia
(cal-VAY-she-a) gigantea (jy-GAN-tee-a). However, I
can easily visualize a careless person picking some nice solid
mushrooms in the small button stage, before the caps fully
develop and the stems are still not visible above ground,
assuming that they are very young puffballs, and eating by
mistake some of the deadly Amanita mushrooms.
There are several things you can do to avoid a drastic
mistake, in fact perhaps your last mistake! Use only the large
puffballs for food, those which are grapefruit size or larger.
Cut through the globe-shaped fungus from top to bottom. The
color of the flesh must be perfectly white in order to be edible.
Secondly, this cross section will enable you to check for tiny
pinholes which will indicate the presence of small worms. They
too are very fond of these strange fungi. The least bit of
darkening indicates that the puffball is beginning to develop
mature spores.
Theoretically one spore, planted by natural forces in the
proper rich wet humus, can result in a tremendously large
puffball. A vast series of extremely thin cobweb-like mycelia
(my-SEE-lee-a), growing into the ground and consuming organic
material, will develop from the single spore. This is in reality
the vegetative portion of all fungi including those that are
gilled, woody or otherwise. Eventually, much like an apple on a
tree, the proper combination of moisture, heat and other growing
conditions will result in the so-called fruiting body, the
mushroom or puffball itself.
My very favorite boyhood hiking area near my hometown of
Kewaunee, Wisconsin took me through the hilly woods west of town
and to the south of the Kewaunee River, a place I dearly missed
during the years I was away at college and in the army.
I headed for "my" woods on a crisp sunny Saturday
one September after my discharge from the army. A high hill with
a clear scenic view toward the river became my lunch stop and
helped to bring back dozens of pleasant memories, especially of
the many adventures that my friend, Tony Kotyza, and I had there
as boys.
All of a sudden a very strange far-away sound reached my ears,
--"Thump….thump….thump….thump." The only object I
could associate with the sound was a large hollow rubber ball
being bounced upon a sidewalk, hardly possible here in the middle
of a woods over a mile from the nearest road.
The mysterious beat continued and became louder and louder,
somewhat like the cadence of a small bass drum. Suddenly two
figures appeared over the rise of the next hill, a man and a
little boy. Now I could see that the youngster was carrying
something whitish under one of his arms and was giving it a good
solid whack about once every four steps.
Finally they approached me, stopped for a chat, and showed me
with great pride the giant puffball they had found along the way.
This was the mysterious "drum" I had been hearing and
the little boy was the drummer!
Henry David Thoreau wrote, "If a man does not keep pace
with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different
drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however
measured or far away." -- I hope you enjoy your puffball
drum!
This is the season to search for the white edible
puffballs.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 10/04/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
