Ian Riddick is a chef who loves to infuse what’s local into his dishes.
Whatever Riddick can acquire, catch and forage — whether it’s salmon, berries or seaweed — goes on the menu at his Heartwood Kitchen Food Outfitter restaurant in Ucluelet, or into his cooking classes and demonstrations.
This fall, it’s been the bounty of mushrooms he’s picked in the rainforest or bought from commercial collectors. Riddick also collects mushrooms from visitors who bring their treasures from as far north as the Yukon and recent wildfire zones, where varieties like morels thrive in the blackened forests.
King and queen boletes, Pacific golden chanterelles, pine, lobster and oyster mushrooms — and others in the choice-edible category — have been flourishing on forest floors, nestled along trees and hidden among the undergrowth.
Riddick said he likes to cook mushrooms in butter, add them to stirfries and soups, and slice and grill others. He pickles some varieties, like fleshy boletes, and minces others for pates. They can also be preserved through freezing and drying.
“It’s been an awesome year for mushrooms,” says Riddick. “Every year is a little different, so depending on the time and where you are, you’re going to find a lot.
“There’s no level of research or expertise to rely on for locations … you just get out there in the forest … get your mushroom eyes on and start picking.”
Riddick will be doing cooking and tasting demonstrations this weekend at the Raincoast Education Society’s annual Mushrooms of the West Coast Conference at the Ucluelet Community Centre. It’s one of the the major fungi events of the fall in British Columbia.
The weekend field course features mycology experts Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther, authors of the consummate field guide Mushrooms of British Columbia.
Topics range from the roles fungi play in the forests, essentials of collecting and identifying mushrooms in the field — including the edible, the medicinal and the poisonous.
Cumberland held its annual mushroom event last weekend, and Victoria and Whistler are hosting major gatherings next weekend.
Melanie Hess, president of the South Vancouver Island Mycology Society, said mushroom fruiting on the Island started in August, and through cycles of dry and wet conditions, the fungi have been showing second and third flushes.
“It’s a beautiful cycle … they keep coming up, so it’s been a prolific year,” said Hess.
The South Island Mycology Society is hosting its annual mushroom show on Oct. 20, taking over the entire ground floor of the Royal B.C. Museum.
The free event will feature local mycologist speakers, hundreds of mushrooms on display and experts available to answer questions and identify mushrooms.
Hess said the numbers of mushroom collectors is increasing as more people get into hiking and weekend walks. That raises the risks of people unknowingly eating poisonous mushrooms.
“It’s a precarious time where folks constantly want to consume them … everyone wants to know can I eat this?’ said Hess, who says only a fraction of the world’s mushrooms are actually edible.
Hess said there is also a huge difference between “edible and choice edible” — the latter would include mushrooms such as chanterelles and cauliflower, bear’s head, lion’s mane, porcinis, lobster and oyster mushrooms.
Other mushrooms, though edible, can be hard and fibrous, bitter, bland or too slimy, she said, adding many edibles can also cause “gastric distress.”
The general rule for all edibles, said Hess, is that every single mushroom must be cooked, because even a choice edibles like morels have toxins that can upset stomachs.
MacKinnon said most B.C. mushrooms are neither delicious nor poisonous.
In his field guide, MacKinnon says there are more than 3,200 species of mushrooms across B.C. — more than in any other province. Many haven’t even been identified, or are only visible by microscope.
It’s estimated there are between two million to four million species of fungus on Earth, including yeasts and moulds. Fungi are their own kingdom in the big three that make up complex multi-cellular life, along with plants and animals.
The fungi that produce the fleshy bodies we know as mushroom include only a small percentage of fungal species.
Long, super-thin filaments called hyphae mass to produce fleshy reproductive bodies that take forms other than just stem-and-cap mushrooms. Some look like dollops of jelly, birds’ nests and clubs and spears. Others, like truffles, fruit underground.
There are about 250 poisonous mushrooms in North America, but few with the potential lethal punch of a death cap mushroom, which is found throughout southwestern B.C. and the capital region.
In August, Oak Bay found and removed about 700 death cap mushrooms that popped up after rain.
The most serious poisonings involve amatoxins found in the death cap, funeral bell and deadly parosol, amino-hexadienoic acid in Smith’s Amanita, and orellanine found in some Cortinarius species. Almost all fatal poisonings cause liver and kidney failure and involve these species.
Island Health said up to 30% of people who consume death caps will die and some will require a liver transplant.
The deadly mushrooms typically grow under such imported trees as beech, chestnut and red oak, but have also adapted to pine and Garry oak.
However, experts say the vast majority of poisonings are typically caused by eating edible species under the wrong circumstances, such as mushrooms that are decayed and infected, improperly stored, undercooked or from contaminated locations.
