Is it safe to pick and eat frozen wild mushrooms?

[Geoff Dann]

A mushroom question I don't know the answer to. Today I found some wood blewits, in reasonable condition apart from the fact that they were frozen solid. I have brought one home and allowed it to thaw in the fridge.

Is it safe to eat? Or is there some reason why you shouldn't pick and eat frozen mushrooms?

 

[swright81076]

I'm no way an expert on fungi, buy I have seen frozen mushrooms in supermarkets in the past. I imagine they would probably thaw out to become mushyrooms.

touched by nature

 

[Harvestman]

I really can't imagine any reason why a frozen mushroom should be unsafe to eat, once thawed. At worst probably a loss of firm texture, and maybe some nutrient loss, but if it wasn't toxic to start with I can't see how freezing could make it toxic. I suppose the only hazard would be that a frozen mushroom might be harder to identify due to changes in appearance, making nasty mistakes more likely.

I did a PhD about freezing things, and absolutely nothing comes to mind. I think it would be fine if you are certain of your identification.

 

[xylaria]

I have eaten blewits picked in this weather, they looked frozen. Inside they were fine, like they sort of didnt freeze. I find fungi just get wetter flesh when exposed to enough cold to freeze them, the texture is past it best but I have lived afterwards.

I am starting to get issues digesting cloud caps and club foot clitocybes though

 

[Toddy]

A bit off topic, sorry, but it's kind of relevant.

I used to eat CotW with both pleasure and impunity, but I get incredible gut knotting wind from it now. Oyster fungi lightly fried in olive oil did the same thing to me earlier this year, but I'd had a bit of a glut and froze them. I used a batch of the frozen ones in stew later on and I had no such reaction
I don't know it's me, or the freezing, that changed something though

I'll try it with CotW next time I find some next and add the results to this thread.


cheers,
Toddy

 

[Geoff Dann]

I'm no way an expert on fungi, buy I have seen frozen mushrooms in supermarkets in the past. I imagine they would probably thaw out to become mushyrooms.

touched by nature

I think those are cooked before they are frozen.

 

[Geoff Dann]

I am starting to get issues digesting cloud caps and club foot clitocybes though

You eat clouded funnel and club foot? I always thought both were on the border of inedible anyway, personally.

 

[Iona]

Nothing wrong with them I reckon...

I've known licensed commercial foragers who, rather than pillaging a patch would pick half of each crop of Cep etc and freeze raw until they had the required amount.

I've eaten blewits that were frozen when picked, and it's known that velvet shanks structure is unaffected after freezing...

Interesting point from Harvestman about identifying though, if you're not too experienced things like smells and textures might be less obvious, so caution wise on the identification front...

Iona

 

[xylaria]

You eat clouded funnel and club foot? I always thought both were on the border of inedible anyway, personally.

I really like the taste of a lot of the funnel caps. cloud cap are a bit dikky with alcohol and club foots are diffenatly dikky with the beer, but the taste is worth abstaining. Geotropa is scrummy, The group has moved around a massive amount in 25 years plus of studing fungi, I going to get the new collins and relearn all the whatever gliva gibba inversa etc are called. I ate clitocybe flaccida [they we called pale false chanterelles] and I can honestly say they were some of the best I have ever tasted.

 

[Toddy]

This is where my total lack of any depth of knowledge of fungi really shows. I only know that the false chanterelles I ate were really tasty.............I didn't know there was more than one, and now I don't know which one was the one that I really enjoyed.
I so need to do some in depth learning on this huge topic

atb,
M

 

[Geoff Dann]

I really like the taste of a lot of the funnel caps. cloud cap are a bit dikky with alcohol and club foots are diffenatly dikky with the beer, but the taste is worth abstaining. Geotropa is scrummy, The group has moved around a massive amount in 25 years plus of studing fungi, I going to get the new collins and relearn all the whatever gliva gibba inversa etc are called. I ate clitocybe flaccida [they we called pale false chanterelles] and I can honestly say they were some of the best I have ever tasted.

OK...I don't know what "cloud cap" is, but I'm assuming you mean C. nebularis. It obviously all comes down to taste though, because I have eaten C. flaccida (usually called tawny funnel) on numerous occasions and I'm struggling to give it a 2.5 out of 5. Tastes like old chip fat to me. But I might try them on other people since you apparently like them so much. Geotropa is OK. It splits opinion. Some people say "ugh, a bit tough", other say "mmm, meaty!" I can imagine them being adopted to make meat-substitute products for vegetarians.

 

[Geoff Dann]

This is where my total lack of any depth of knowledge of fungi really shows. I only know that the false chanterelles I ate were really tasty.............I didn't know there was more than one, and now I don't know which one was the one that I really enjoyed.
I so need to do some in depth learning on this huge topic

atb,
M

I've never heard them called "pale false chanterelles" before, although I can imagine people getting them mixed up with chanterelles, although they are in the same taxonomic group as the blewits (old guidebooks list them as Lepista flaccida.) You must have seen loads of them. Very, very common in conifer woodland.

 

[fungi2bwith]

I've eaten wood blewits that I found when frozen solid many times without any problems. I've also picked velvet shanks frozen solid and dug through the snow to pick both st Georges and winter chanterelles also eaten without any problems. Yesterday there were loads of winter chanterelles but I also found a cauliflower, it was looked in perfect condition but was very brittle, which is normally a sign of being frozen then thawed, it tasted good and I have also collected and eaten thawed cauliflowers in the past without problems. As long as they are not beginning to rot/go mouldy then I can't see a problem.

Garry

 

[xylaria]

Pale false chanterelles are now hygrophoropsis aurantiaca var pallidus. In all truth what I ate on a plate in 1988 which was IDed from a book printed 10 years previous is as lost as that book is. I know the book had the line "deadly poisonous, eaten in poland" next to brown roll rims." I probably ate clitocybe flaccida [tawny funnel cap] considering it was broadleaf ancient woodland. Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca [false chanterelle] grows in a coniferous woods can be called in clitocybe aurantiaca in very old books, most of my books class it as a edible.

20 odd years ago they started doing the DNA on fungi and moving most fungi into differant tribe groups based on this. They found quite a few of the orangy brown clitocybes and lepistas were nearly the same species. Some species became one species and what were simple varations became two species. A fungi like false chanterelles and pale false chantelles become one species and they were moved out of the large tricholoma family into a little family with the really toxic jack-o-lantern. I need a new book because they have all moved around again, and i am totally lost. The county recorder has told me this should be last big shuffle, because everyone is getting very tired of it now.

Clitocybe flaccida must have a large varition in colour and flavour dependant on population.