Spent 6 months learning to identify mushrooms and I still can't tell a chicken from a sulfur shelf

I got really into foraging back in April when I found a massive hen of the woods at a park near my town in Ohio. Thought I was a natural. Then last week I spent 2 hours trying to ID what I thought was chicken mushroom and it turned out to be a random polypore that would've given me stomach issues. My guidebook has 30+ lookalikes for just 5 edible species. How do you guys even get confident enough to eat what you find?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_green866d ago

That hen of the woods find was a RUSH I bet, totally get why you dove in. The lookalike problem is REAL and honestly scary once you start digging into it. Still mostly stick to picking with a group of experienced foragers, solo ID is a whole different beast.

phoenixgonzalez1d ago

Chicken mushroom is one of the easiest ones to ID though, honestly. Orange with yellow pores, no gills, grows in big shelves on oak. If you're spending 2 hours on that one, @blair_green86, you might be overthinking it. The scary lookalikes are mostly for little brown mushrooms or the white ones. Chicken's got a bunch of lookalikes too, but they don't all taste like chicken and most won't mess you up bad. At some point you just gotta eat a tiny bit and wait, that's how everyone builds confidence. Six months is still new, give it another season before you start sweating the rare stuff.