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Driving through a back road in Bristol city centre to the chip shop last night I spotted the glaring yellow 'chicken of the woods' fungi growing from a huge willow tree on the pavement. I didn't have a knife with me and was unwilling and unable to pull a young part of it off. Click http://cookery.newarchaeology.com/chick ... _woods.php to see a picture and recipe. Apparently its one of the 'fail-safe four' edible fungi i.e. it has no poisonous look-a-likes. I'm off to retrieve it now and cook it up in honor of my best friend Alex who's birthday it is tomorrow but unfortunately cannot enjoy it with us as he is off on holiday in France ( where there are mushrooms a plenty).

I've read about that one - haven't seen one yet - what puts me off is that it is supposed to taste like chicken! I'm a "real" veggie, i.e. I genuinely don't like meat of any description...

Tell us about it when you've eaten it, how similar to chicken it tastes!

Ina

I must go and have a good look round my garden - full of willows, oaks, yews and one chestnut tree!

My husband is waiting for the honey fungus to come back on the elm tree that he removed last year (fungus that is), before learning that it was edible!!!

Chicken of the streets? I thought that was rats!

Nev

that looks like this squirty foam filler stuff my dad used sometimes Mushrooms are one of the few foods I really don't like, though I have never tried anything other than what you buy in the shops

I've just had a quick google to find a picture for Nev (just to prove it's not rats) - and I think the American chicken of the woods looks different from the British one!

Well, here's one from the UK

http://www.tastymushroompartnership.co. ... phore.html

Neither, I believe, lays eggs... Pity, really!

Ina

Thanks Ina - looks interesting but I am still unsure if it is something I'd eat!

Nev

No wonder mushroom identification is so hard, when you get a picture showing a chestnut coloured mushroom and telling you it's really easy to identify from its bright sulphur yellow colour!!!

We discovered some oyster mushrooms growing on our land. Got all excited and took them to the pharmacy to check (we were 99% sure but just wanted to be 100% sure).

Unfortunately there were too many maggots in them - even though I think I picked them all out I was so put off I binned them all! Such a shame.

If they are so maggoty they might come in handy as chicken feed!

Ina

That reminds me - I have got to get a photo on here - something the chickens had which was a lot bigger than a maggot! I'll try and do it later.

Ina, if that photo is a chicken of the woods it's a really old one. I've only come across one of them, and that was at head height in an urban area (and I was away from home so had to leave it). It was a really startling yellow, and looked just like someone had pinned a rosette to the tree.

Yes, it doesn't look particularly yellow, does it? Maybe it's just a bad photo. But I've never seen one myself - I only took that picture from the web to see what they are supposed to look like... Well, I shall look out for bright yellow.

Where abouts in the city centre mate? - I have recently moved to Bristol and am finding my feet somewhat. We did find some oyster mushrooms by the river to the east, sort of near to Hanam lock. We had a hunt last autumn around clifton and came back with loads of different types. Do you know any more hot spots smurf?

If you want to identify mushrooms I would get the Roger phillips book it is my fungus bible.

I'll have to have a nosy around the woods here - there are some oak woodlands around! I rather fancy trying that.

Haven't been very adventurous so far with mushrooms, apart from partaking in a giant puffball feast at the scottish sculpture workshop when I worked there... it was scrummy... very delicate flavour.

At the same time at the sculpture workshop we ate a soup made with sorrel - we had a sculptor from eastern europe and she collected it and made us eat it with a hard boiled egg in the soup to take away the 'poison' - oxalates I think it is. Was lovely!

We had a bloke from Azerbaijan come to visit us once - he caught a rabbit in our garden with his hands.. using techniques from his country... and also whipped himself with nettles (perhaps a little kinky for most of the selfsufficientishers) saying it was 'good medicine'