sgt.porter
Marksman
If you read my guide "Morels: How to Hunt", then you learned that a mushroom called the shaggy mane is always a precursor to the morel season. Whether the mushrooms are early or late, the shaggy mane is always 4 or 5 days ahead of the first morels. You should have also read that by judging the weather around here lately, morels should be popping in my area just in time for this weekend.
And like clockwork, the first shaggy mane's broke ground this morning:
Shaggy Manes, also called inky tops, are another of Indiana's delicious wild mushrooms. In my opinion, they have more flavor than a morel, but I have to rate them side by side with morels because the taste is completely different.
Shaggy manes are safe to eat, easy to identify, and grow abundantly around the state. They get the name shaggy mane because the outer skin of the mushroom resembles matted shaggy hair. They earn the name inky top because as they mature they go through a process of self digestion, releasing a black, sticky, spore filled ink, as a means to spread the spores.
There is a fine art to collecting and eating shaggy manes. You must take action to earn it's flavor. If you get lazy, you've got a mess on your hands (quite literally)
When to hunt
The great thing about shaggy manes is that they fruit twice a year. Start looking for them in early April, just before the morels. Look for them when the weather starts to cool in the fall, normally a couple weeks before Halloween.
Each of these two seasons last about a week max. The life cycle of a shaggy mane is very short. Individual mushrooms will last about 2 days as long as the sky remains cloudy. If the sun is bright and hot, or it rains, the shaggy mane begins to self digest immediately, sometimes taking no more than a day to go from just sprouting to fully mature and gone. Luckily, new shaggy manes tend to pop up every day through this short season.
Where to hunt
Shaggy manes seem to prefer rocky loose soil with lots of organic material mixed in. Common places to find them are fence rows, wood lines, old logging roads, ditches and abandoned railroad beds. They have been known to pop up just about anywhere, including lawns and even pushing through pavement in parking lots! This mornings shaggy manes were found in a railroad bed.
How to identify
Shaggy manes are easy to identify. At first glance they look like a white bullet or elongated egg standing among the vegetation. In their edible stage, they can be anywhere from 2" to over 1' tall. Upon closer inspection, the outer skin looks like matted fur or sorta like shingles. When they first appear, the outer skin is bright white, the tips of the "fur" turn light brown as the air begins to dry them out.
When you cut a shaggy mane from the ground, you will notice that the cap is quite fragile while the stem is fairly tough and thick, yet hollow. If you grip the cap too tightly, it will more than likely split from top to bottom. The bottom edges of the cap may or may not have started turning black.
If you slice a shaggy mane lengthwise, you will notice the cap hugs the stem. It is made up of tightly packed gills running from top to bottom. The bottoms of the gills may or may not have begun turning black:
Now is where time is of the essence. Once you cut a shaggy mane from the ground, self digestion begins. The one and only way to stop the digestion process is to cook them. On a normal day you have an hour to hour and a half at the very most from the time you collect the mushrooms till the time you cook them. If you wait too long, the mushrooms will become a slimy inky inedible mess. This is easy if you are close to home, your campsite, or surviving, but may not be so easy if you are already an hour from your fire. When going to a certain remote location that produces shaggy manes abundantly, I carry a propane burner, frying pan, cooking pot, and butter. That way i can cook the shaggy manes immediately and store them in the pot till i can get them home and use them.
Once cooked, shaggy manes refrigerate well for a couple days, or you can toss them in bags and freeze them. As long as you have good freezing practices, the mushrooms will be good to use up to a year later.
Because of the short growing seasons, I force myself to freeze a few bags for later enjoyment, but I probably eat 10 times more fresh shaggy manes than what i freeze.
Now you've got your fresh shaggy manes home, brush the dirt off, use as little water as possible to clean them.
Toss some butter in a frying pan, add shaggy manes, pepper, a couple chopped wild leeks (read my guide: Wild Leeks ), 2 or 3 dozen dandelions, and you've got yourself a meal!
And like clockwork, the first shaggy mane's broke ground this morning:
Shaggy Manes, also called inky tops, are another of Indiana's delicious wild mushrooms. In my opinion, they have more flavor than a morel, but I have to rate them side by side with morels because the taste is completely different.
Shaggy manes are safe to eat, easy to identify, and grow abundantly around the state. They get the name shaggy mane because the outer skin of the mushroom resembles matted shaggy hair. They earn the name inky top because as they mature they go through a process of self digestion, releasing a black, sticky, spore filled ink, as a means to spread the spores.
There is a fine art to collecting and eating shaggy manes. You must take action to earn it's flavor. If you get lazy, you've got a mess on your hands (quite literally)
When to hunt
The great thing about shaggy manes is that they fruit twice a year. Start looking for them in early April, just before the morels. Look for them when the weather starts to cool in the fall, normally a couple weeks before Halloween.
Each of these two seasons last about a week max. The life cycle of a shaggy mane is very short. Individual mushrooms will last about 2 days as long as the sky remains cloudy. If the sun is bright and hot, or it rains, the shaggy mane begins to self digest immediately, sometimes taking no more than a day to go from just sprouting to fully mature and gone. Luckily, new shaggy manes tend to pop up every day through this short season.
Where to hunt
Shaggy manes seem to prefer rocky loose soil with lots of organic material mixed in. Common places to find them are fence rows, wood lines, old logging roads, ditches and abandoned railroad beds. They have been known to pop up just about anywhere, including lawns and even pushing through pavement in parking lots! This mornings shaggy manes were found in a railroad bed.
How to identify
Shaggy manes are easy to identify. At first glance they look like a white bullet or elongated egg standing among the vegetation. In their edible stage, they can be anywhere from 2" to over 1' tall. Upon closer inspection, the outer skin looks like matted fur or sorta like shingles. When they first appear, the outer skin is bright white, the tips of the "fur" turn light brown as the air begins to dry them out.
When you cut a shaggy mane from the ground, you will notice that the cap is quite fragile while the stem is fairly tough and thick, yet hollow. If you grip the cap too tightly, it will more than likely split from top to bottom. The bottom edges of the cap may or may not have started turning black.
If you slice a shaggy mane lengthwise, you will notice the cap hugs the stem. It is made up of tightly packed gills running from top to bottom. The bottoms of the gills may or may not have begun turning black:
Now is where time is of the essence. Once you cut a shaggy mane from the ground, self digestion begins. The one and only way to stop the digestion process is to cook them. On a normal day you have an hour to hour and a half at the very most from the time you collect the mushrooms till the time you cook them. If you wait too long, the mushrooms will become a slimy inky inedible mess. This is easy if you are close to home, your campsite, or surviving, but may not be so easy if you are already an hour from your fire. When going to a certain remote location that produces shaggy manes abundantly, I carry a propane burner, frying pan, cooking pot, and butter. That way i can cook the shaggy manes immediately and store them in the pot till i can get them home and use them.
Once cooked, shaggy manes refrigerate well for a couple days, or you can toss them in bags and freeze them. As long as you have good freezing practices, the mushrooms will be good to use up to a year later.
Because of the short growing seasons, I force myself to freeze a few bags for later enjoyment, but I probably eat 10 times more fresh shaggy manes than what i freeze.
Now you've got your fresh shaggy manes home, brush the dirt off, use as little water as possible to clean them.
Toss some butter in a frying pan, add shaggy manes, pepper, a couple chopped wild leeks (read my guide: Wild Leeks ), 2 or 3 dozen dandelions, and you've got yourself a meal!
