The Worst Summer Meal of My Life

It is a splash of bright orange in the middle of the dark summer forest. We have turned the corner of the trail and a beam of sunlight has entered the forest in front of us illuminating an oak stump that is studded with an orange shelf fungus that ladders its way up the wood. This is the mother lode, a chicken-of-the-woods mushroom bigger than any we have ever seen.

For me, summer means foraging hikes to hunt for wild mushrooms, followed by feasts involving butter, mushrooms, greens, pasta, wine, and delicious cheese. But one time, the feast part was the beginning of my first all-nighter in decades.

We leave some of the chicken-of-the-woods on the stump to drop spores for the next generation, but most of it is carved off and filled into our backpacks for the trek back to the house. At the house, we clean the piles of orange fungus, cut it all into strips, and saute the strips in butter before cooling them and packing them into freezer bags. When we find an abundance of mushrooms, we like to stock the freezer.

Chicken-of-the-woods is a safe mushroom in our region, where it grows mostly on oak trees and stumps. One day when I was living in Northern California, I saw my old friend chicken growing on a huge eucalyptus tree. It was a little past its prime, so I didn't eat it, but I was on the lookout for more. Later on, I learned that chicken-of-the-woods is more accurately named "sulfur shelf" and that it only is edible when it grows on oak trees. Had I eaten the sulfur shelf from a eucalyptus tree, I might have gotten violently ill. Good thing I passed.

To know a little bit about wild mushrooms can be a dangerous thing. Although there are probably hundreds of kinds of fungus that grow in the forests of our farm, I only know about dozen that we can eat. I can identify and safely eat chicken-of-the-woods, hen-of-the-woods (maitake), oyster mushrooms, puffballs, morels, hedgehogs, chanterelles, black trumpets, lobster mushrooms, lions manes, meadow mushrooms, and (I thought) red and yellow boletes. Beyond those, we try to identify but do not eat. Better safe than sorry.

One day my partner and I take a friend out looking for wild mushrooms. It is a gorgeous summer day and we hike into the forest near the pond. That forest is one of our best mushroom hunting spots. That day, we find four types of edible fungus: oyster mushrooms, hedgehogs, lobsters, and a bunch of red and yellow boletes. It is a feast. I saute each of the mushrooms in butter and we have a tasting menu of deliciousness. At the meal, my partner shies away from the boletes because it is one that we have only recently learned about eating and something seems off to her. "More for me," I think, as I eat all the leftovers while cleaning up. We say goodbye to our friend and go on with our evening.

I have to say that the red and yellow bolete is one of the most delicious mushrooms I have ever tasted. The consistency is perfect. It can take butter and crisp up a little bit, but still keep a moist, rich, intensely flavorful interior. It is heavenly on pizza. Our neighbors had shown us how to recognize the mushroom, and they have a spot near their house that produces a yearly bounty. On that day, I am thrilled and proud to find our own patch and share it with our friend. But my partner thinks something is off, and I should have known better.

It turns out that there are several kinds of boletes that are red on top and yellow underneath. None of them are deadly, but while some of them are delicious and have no side effects, others are equally delicious but can have some very unpleasant side effects. The toxic look-alike can be distinguished because as soon as you touch it or cut into it, it immediately stains a bright blue. That is what is off with our mushrooms, and that is enough to keep my partner from eating them. I had noted the blue stain, but it hadn't set off my alarm bells. They are so good, and I am so confident and happy.

Six hours later, I abruptly get up from sleeping and need to go to the bathroom. This is unusual for me. I almost never need to get up in the middle of the night. But this is urgent. I throw up. A lot. Then, for the next couple of hours, every twenty minutes I need to throw up more. I have the "chills" in between my visits to the bathroom. I start to panic. We read up on the mushrooms I had eaten and we decide it is likely the "look-alike" bolete that is making me sick. We text our friend who ate with us, and although he feels a little sick to his stomach, he is nowhere near as bad as I am. It just keeps coming. We decide to go to the ER, hoping there might be some sort of antidote, or at least an IV to help with rehydration.

It is an hour's car ride to the ER, and I am in the back seat with my trusty dog to comfort me. By the time I get there, I am feeling slightly better. I had only thrown up once in the car and the chills had somewhat passed. We decide to go in anyway. It is a slow night at the suburban ER at 3 AM and I am the only patient. I get right in. The doctor is a young guy and this is his first mushroom poisoning. He knows nothing about mushrooms so he consults with doctors at the University and decides that on the outside chance that I have ingested a deadly amanita or a destroying angel, I should be transported to the city hospital and undergo a treatment to save my liver. Yikes!

After talking it through with my partner (who advises me to go), I tell the doctor no. I know what I ate. I have photos of it on my phone. It was neither deadly nor destroying. It was a bolete. And I am feeling better. He is adamant. He says that even if I am feeling better, if I am wrong, the damage that could be happening could be irreversible. By then it is 4:30 in the morning and the clock is ticking. If I want to save my liver, he says, I need to act now. Or I could trust my own knowledge of mushrooms and the fact that in this case, I might know better than a medical professional.

Against everyone's advice, I decide to get in the car and go home. As we drive home, the sun is coming up. I am sure of my (adjusted) mushroom I.D.s, but all of those people telling me not to trust myself have put a niggle of doubt in the back of my mind. When I get home, I rehydrate and go to sleep. I wake up feeling much better and quite glad not to be a patient at the University Hospital.

This was a few years ago. I didn't tell anyone about my mistake at the time. Nothing on my social media. I think I was embarrassed.

Wild mushrooms are still a favorite summer food. The season starts in May with morels and closes out in October with the final hen-of-the-woods, if we can find one. Along the way, I think my favorite is hedgehogs, but chicken-of-the-woods comes in close. However, you will not find any boletes anywhere on my list. Not anymore.