Lion's mane mushroom
Lion's mane mushroom
has now made it onto my list of delicious and safe fungi to
wildcraft (along with morels
and oysters).
Despite the fact that there are at least three species in the
genus Hericium, all are edible, and the shaggy white mane makes
these mushrooms tough to confuse with anything else. You
might want to stick to the scientific name, though, since 
common names are variable and include Bearded
Tooth, Hedgehog, Satyr's Beard, Bearded Hedgehog, and Pom Pom,
along with Lion's Mane.
How about
flavor? The internet reports that lion's mane mushrooms
taste like lobster, but even though I'm not a seafood fan, I
thought they were delicious. Mark (who loves seafood and who
reports that only the texture reminded him of lobster) agreed,
noting that lion's manes are midway on the delectability scale
between oysters and shiitakes. (Actually, some oyster
mushrooms can be as good as shiitakes, but the flavor tends to be
less dependable, so Mark rates them lower.)
I'm actually
surprised I hadn't stumbled across this distinctive edible before,
but I suspect the issue is that I'm a swamp girl and the lion's
mane likes harder wood, like oaks, which tend to grow in drier
forests around here.
Wednesday, I found two lion's mane mushrooms popping out of a
huge, fallen oak that came down in our parking area last
summer. Now I really, really want those delectable, rotting
logs for my forest garden. Too bad they're at least two feet
in diameter and each round weighs a ton....
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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