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Thor
told me that chanterelles were baseball-sized orange fungi that hid beneath the
leaf litter around the base of oak trees and were good to eat, so we should go
get some. I wasn't doing anything special at the time, so I said okay. We headed
out to Frank’s Valley along Redwood Creek, parked at what Thor said was a
likely looking spot, and in a very short time he had collected enough of the prized
fungi to make a meal. We drove them back to my place, sliced them thin, and
cooked them for dinner.
Now I'm
no fancy epicurean with a lot of words to describe nuances of flavor, nor am I
a scientist who can explain the chemistry of organic compounds on the
biological surface of my tongue, and the electrical impulses firing excitement
into webs of neurons in some tiny part of my brain. And I’m not even all that
fond of mushrooms in general, but I’ll tell you what. Those chanterelles were a
revelation.
You
might think I should try to describe the flavor to you, but the fact is, if you
ask a dozen people to describe what chanterelles taste like, you'll get a dozen
different answers. Some will probably even say “yuck.” If you really want to
know what a thing is like, you need to experience it for yourself.
So Thor
gave me my first taste, but shortly thereafter he married his sweetheart and
lit out for Coyote Springs ,
Wyoming
It
seemed an easy enough thing to do, to learn how to find chanterelles. At first I
did a little research, a little reading, and found out there was such a thing
as false chanterelles (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca), whose bland
flavor will leave you wondering what the fuss was all about -- and that's just
for starters. If you were to eat a chanterelle-looking ‘shroom called
Jack-O-Lantern (Omphalotus olivascens),
you could find yourself hooked up to a stomach pump at the local hospital and
meeting some fella called a “mycologist” who would have been called in for the
unenviable job of trying to identify what you ate.
Nope,
as alluring as chanterelles are, a few hours of intimacy with a stomach pump
could turn just about anyone off the quest for finding them. Funny thing is,
lots of folks who've gotten sick from false chanterelles curse all chanterelles. Even funnier is that
some folks have actually taken a liking
to false chanterelles and mock anyone who tries to tell ‘em the real thing is better.
I don't know what to think about such people.
Anyway,
when the wet season came around again I spent several weeks going over a lot of
ground up around Mt. Tam, and what a time did I have. At first I'd drop by on
my way back from work, but darkness often chased me home empty-handed.
Occasionally, though, I did manage to find a few of the evanescent little
beauties on those brief forays. Each time I found some I felt like I was being
drawn toward to a deeper undstanding of chanterelles, maybe even to an
understanding of their source, deep in the ground. Things only a true mycophile
would know. So I decided to take a little vacation time -- OK, I won't lie; I
took three weeks -- to get into some serious, full-time chanterelle-hunting.
My
tools were simple -- a few wax paper bags, a pocket knife, and my favorite
field guide, a musty old thing I found in a second-hand bookstore.
Although
I didn't find much the first couple of days, I felt I was on the right trail
and sure enough, I began to find a few, and then a few more. Eventually I found
a motherlode -- a patch that seemed
to have as many chanterelles as there are stars in the sky. Right there in a
small clearing, far away from any of the trails, the earth sparkled with dozens
of golden eruptions. I collected great quantities of the mushrooms for three full
days. I ate so many chanterelles that I dreamed of flamingoes and wondered if
my skin was going to change color. I sauteed my chanterelles in wine, and I
sauteed them in butter. I sauteed them in teriyaki sauce, and I sauteed them in
peach syrup.
I sauteed
them in ecstasy, in rapture, blissed to the core of my being.
But my
bliss was short-lived. During the next several days I found not so much as a
single chanterelle. I had become obsessed with them by then, however, and I made
the mistake of trying to describe chanterelles, and my quest to find their
source, with my wife and with friends. None of them had tasted chanterelles. They
had laughed at me for being so avid about a mere fungus! A worthless object,
quite possibly poisonous, fit only
for scorn. And now I couldn't find any to prove how good they were.
I
continued to read about them, especially accounts from others who experienced
them as I did. I was able to find such stories going back to the dawn of
civilization. Once I thought I overheard a group of strangers talking about
chanterelles, but when I listened more closely I realized they were talking
about store-bought button mushrooms.
No
matter how hard I looked, though, I couldn't find any more chanterelles, and I began
to feel resentment toward them. I even ate button mushrooms for a while,
figuring there must be some wisdom in following the herd.
But
that didn’t work. My life came to seem empty and vain. I took to sleeping in
the woods on weekends so I could seek my quarry at first light and continue
until dark. I crawled through merciless chaparral, my body slashed by multitudes
of branches. Rattlesnakes buzzed me, a primordial sound, a call of death. I
came down with a nasty cold and broke out with a furious rash of poison oak.
Wood rats and field mice and millipedes and banana slugs and Jersusalem
crickets and God-only-knows-what-else crawled over me while I slept on beds of
leaves. I didn’t care. What were mere creature comforts next to a basket full
of golden chanterelles?
By and
by I finally found a couple of the beauties way up a no-name canyon, on a slope
covered with poison oak. I took them home and cooked them up, savoring each
bite like it was my first.
For the
remainder of the wet season I found many chanterelles, but now instead of
picking them, I would just sit with them. If I found a few under some leaves
I'd just replace the leaves, lie down and keep company with them. Some nights I
couldn't find any, but I didn't let it bother me. Almost as soon as I gave up
trying to find them I'd sit down right next to one. Sometimes I'd stay there
all night, curled up with my prize, and awake refreshed, cold dewdrops dappling
my flesh.
Halfway
through one night, while a full moon was directly overhead, I awoke with a
start to the yipping of a lone coyote. On the ground next to me I could see the
golden hue of a freshly emerged chanterelle reflecting the moonlight. I moved
closer to it and put my nose down near its base and inhaled its sweet aroma. I
carefully brushed away some of the topsoil around it and uncovered the
glistening mycelium. In that moment, everything lay revealed before me.
I
finally was able to settle back into the mundane world of home and work. I
still love chanterelles, but I keep my enthusiasms to myself. When I do talk
about them, I speak in metaphor, like a poet. I don’t need to sleep in the
woods anymore to find my fill of chanterelles, either. Now I notice them pretty
much anywhere. I’ve found them on scree slopes in the High Sierra and on sand
dunes in the Mojave Desert . I’ve found them in
downtown San Francisco and even under my desk where I work.
May your world also be filled with chanterelles.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
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