Wild Shaggy Mane Mushrooms – Pick Them While They’re Young!
Shaggy Mane mushrooms (Coprinus Comatus) can be found right here in Northern California. If you’ve never foraged for mushrooms before, this is a great one to begin with because of how simple it is to identify. Their oblong cap is white and has upturned scales, which makes it look a bit shaggy. Another common name for this kind of mushroom is the Lawyer’s Wig because of its resemblance to traditional courtroom wigs.
In contrast to the cap, the spores are a deep black. Their stems are hollow and lack the shaggy look of the cone. You need to forage for these guys when they are young or else they aren’t great for eating. As they mature, they’ll start to darken and you will notice it coloring your hands with an inky black substance. You may even see an accumulation of this substance at the base of the mushroom, which is an indication that it might already be past its prime.
Unlike a lot of mushrooms you might be foraging for (like oyster mushrooms for example, that grow on trees), these ones grow right out of the ground. They are commonly found in lawns, soil, piles of wood chips, and in areas where the land has been disrupted. This makes it a popular wild edible mushroom for urban foragers.
Shaggy Mane mushrooms do not keep well and you likely won’t be seeing them at your local grocery store. If you do come across some of these mushrooms in the outdoors, make sure that you get right to cooking them in the hours that follow. They tend to get inky shortly after they are picked and will start to degrade quickly.
In most cases, these mushrooms grow solo and do not usually pop up in dense patches. The Shaggy Mane does have one common lookalike, known as the Inky Cap. These mushrooms are also edible, although they can have some adverse side effects when consumed with alcohol. Unlike Shaggy Manes, Inky Caps tend to grow in patches.
Before you ever consume wild mushrooms, make sure you have done your due diligence and are confident that you have identified them properly. Although you don’t have to worry about this too much with Shaggy Manes, there are plenty of toxic mushrooms out there that can easily be mistaken for edible ones. If you are not a mushroom expert, it’s best to start with mushrooms that are easy to identify and have no toxic lookalikes.
The flavor of Shaggy Mane mushrooms is quite subtle. They are often used in simple dishes like pasta and risotto because of this. They add some nice texture to these kinds of dishes and their subtle flavor is a nice touch. Make sure to clean them before cooking. You can slice them length-wise and then sauté them before adding them to your dish of choice. There are so many different edible wild mushrooms in Northern California. The only way to find the ones that you particularly enjoy is to make it a habit to mix things up and forage for different kinds. Why not give the unique Shaggy Mane mushroom a try?
Want to find your own? We have mushroom foraging classes all season in Marin, Sonoma, and the Santa Cruz Mountains.