Chicken of the Woods

My First Chicken of the Woods 

Now Mondays is no ones favorite day. My Mondays are a lot more relaxed compared to others so i like to think of my Mondays as Wednesdays now. I wake up late and all i have to worry about is getting to class at 16:30 which is my one and only class for the day. How fortunate am i hey? I decided to shake things up in my schedule and do a bit of foraging for my friend, Kevin, who works for Delaire Graff Estate. We were both impressed at what we found.

Monday morning on the 23rd of February 2015 was a sunny and bright day. Clouds were as non existent as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The suns heat creeping into my room turning it into a oven which was set to a low temperature ready to braise me in my own sweat. Now you could imagine that this wasn't the perfect weather to go mushroom hunting in. Kevin in the other hand was eager to get his hand dirty in the forest. So i figured i might as well since we had people telling us that mushroom season had started a little early this year.

On we go to Jonkershoek, a quiet area just outside of Stellenbosch. As Kevin said "This is what two chefs do on their off days". I felt guilty as i didn't have a job but i went with it. We stopped a long a field which was fenced off from locals. Now being chefs we ignored the fence and made our way over it to get to the river which was, figuratively speaking in a foraging aspect, DRY! We looked and looked but found nothing. We were wasting our time there and decided we would go back to the car and figure out our next move. 

Just as we were about to get back to the car. I spotted something in the corner of my eye. This huge fungus sticking out the bottom of a tree stump. Now lets be honest here, Stellenbosch is clean but people still dump their things in bushes on the side of the road. So at first i thought it was a banged up pillow lying against the tree. As i got closer the sun shines its ever so trusty light on it and brings out this almost sunset over the mountain color. It was amazing to find. We managed to find a "chicken in the woods" mushroom. Never been so excited.

Its name is given to it because it resembles the taste of chicken. A really good indication would be its bright orange color. Its not that easy to find this time of year and a KG usually goes for about R250. It is very delicious and sauteing it in butter would be lovely. You usually find them on hardwoods (Usually Oak trees) and grows in shelve like formations which can be from 5cm in diameter to about 60cm.

After a nice long day of walking in the sun foraging. Reward yourself with a cold beer or two. One thing to keep in mind as well is good company while foraging. That is one thing i have learned today. Sharing the enjoyment of finding a muddy treasure is twice the excitement then going at it alone. So hope you foragers forage well!

For more information about this mushroom. Visit http://www.mushroomguru.co.za/