Swedish gold hunt with a chanterelle lunch

[Biped]

If you can bare with me, I have a chantrelle tale to share (some times us old dogs simply have too many tales and wax way to verbose, eh?)

I was working in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness out of Gardiner, MT (spent 13 seasons pounding that country before moving southward to the Teton Wilderness, marvelous in deed!). I was working with a volunteer from Finland or Sweden, can't remember which (the other pitfall of being an old dog ) We would be clearing trail or riding back to camp after the days work and Pers would hop of his horse, pluck a bunch of mushrooms, sniff them, and exclaim "I'm sure these are Chantrelles! They are eatable and very taste!".

In fact, he said, we have a song about them in Sweden (Finland) and would burst into the Chantrelle Song "La Dee Lomphda Da Dee Ommp La!" (or something to that affect in his native language and my hapless rendition, forgive me.)

I told Pers that we had a song too. It was about some fellow who ate a bunch of mushrooms thinking they were eatable...they weren't. But Pers was insistent they had to be Chantrelles and picked a bread bag of them to give it a go. I told him that there were two conditions for him to eat them. First, he needed to bequeath me his fine waxed Filson tin cruiser jacket that I admired, and secondly, after he ate the mushrooms he need to sleep bent over so that he would be easy to sling over a mule to pack out the next day.

Lo and behold, the next morning Pers was alive, well, and ready for more. And since such was the case, I was also persuaded to partake of picking, cleaning, and sautéing the next batch of delicious Chantrelles

They could be tricky to find and there are some toxic mushrooms that are almost identical. I am happy that was not the case for you :-) But, did you like them? I love to fry them with pepper, butter, onions and a bit salt and put them on soft flatbread.

musch-0001.jpg

[Biped]

Wow again, more beautiful pictures from Sweden. I must visit someday. The forests you have are almost surreal. Are the lands public so that anyone may camp or do they tend to be private land?

While a scout camp this year I found chanterelles right in back of my hammock, a treasure for sure. Yum, They were in an area where there was runoff when it rains so I looked both up and down stream and, sure enough, found some more.

Forgot one thing....let me know if you are visiting Sweden. I can show you some secret chanterelle spots :-)

[OlTrailDog]

They could be tricky to find and there are some toxic mushrooms that are almost identical. I am happy that was not the case for you :-) But, did you like them? I love to fry them with pepper, butter, onions and a bit salt and put them on soft flatbread.

musch-0001.jpg

Yes, we enjoyed them very much. My favorite mushroom are Morels, hard to find but nothing I've had in my limited experience tops them. I've had shaggy manes which were good and abundant around here. And I've had puff balls which are big, but only taste bland. The Chantrelles come in second under the Morels. I know there are Boletus around here too, but I've never figured them out. I know there are many others, but I'm not into experimenting and that may be why I'm an old dog ;-)

[Biped]

Yes, we enjoyed them very much. My favorite mushroom are Morels, hard to find but nothing I've had in my limited experience tops them. I've had shaggy manes which were good and abundant around here. And I've had puff balls which are big, but only taste bland. The Chantrelles come in second under the Morels. I know there are Boletus around here too, but I've never figured them out. I know there are many others, but I'm not into experimenting and that may be why I'm an old dog ;-)

No experimenting here either...I have learnt that lesson the hard way :-) The Chantrelles I found is not the best one. There are a few others. The best one is the funnel cantilever..it's brownish instead of yellow and only grow during autumn (over here)