Anti-semitic Mushrooms

When I am out foraging in the woods curiosity seems to always get the best of me.  If there is an interesting mushroom I usually stop and document it and if needed bring back a small sample for further identification.

I do this for two reasons.

One, it makes me stop in the woods.  When you stop walking in the woods and are no longer making noises, the other critters that inhabit that particular stretch start to come back out.  This is when you can see some really cool animals.  The other reason why I do this is that it forces me to identify other mushrooms that I might not be looking for.  This helps with a poisonous look-alike as well as the odd edible here and there.

Sometimes I see mushrooms that I know are edible but always pass on them.  Why?  Because they just look unappetizing or there just aren’t enough of them to make a substantial meal.

Enter the Wood Ear mushroom or previously known as the horrible anti-semitic Jew’s Ear Mushroom.  More on that later.

The Chinese call this the black fungus.  It’s sold on Amazon.  It’s sold in Asian markets.  It grows everywhere.  Like I’ve stressed before this isn’t an identification blog so I’ll leave that up to Peterson and Audubon.

Every time I would see this weird looking mushroom growing in the woods I would always pass up on it.  It usually fit it to both categories of unappetizing and not enough to make a meal.

One day as morel season was coming to a close and the seed ticks were just waking up my friend and I stumbled on to a big log covered in these mushrooms.  They were pristine.  They weren’t slimy or too dry.  They were perfect.

We couldn’t pass up such a prime patch.  We weren’t sure what they tasted like or even how to prepare them but none the less we harvested them.

We picked several hat fulls and set out of the woods to get all the seed ticks off of us.

So why is it, was it, call the Jew’s Ear Mushroom.  Wtf does a jews ear even look like to warrant this mushroom to be called that?  What anti-semitic mycologist thought this would be a good idea?

After a little research, I found out that Wood Ear mushrooms tend to grow on elder trees.  Judas Iscariot (A jew) hung himself on an elder tree.

So.

What.

Wait.

What.

Ok, that’s even more messed up than I thought.  Friggin weird huh?  An anti-semitic mushroom that the Chinese have eaten for thousands of years due to its medicinal properties.

So how do I eat it?  Well, that’s where it gets even weirder!

Most mushrooms that we forage get the simple butter salt and pepper in the skillet treatment.  This gives you a good understanding of what the mushroom tastes like and how you can better prepare it in the future.  As a food nerd, this is important to me.

DON’T DO THIS WITH WOOD EARS!

If you try and cook a fresh wood ear in the skillet it will literally jump out of the pan!  To cook these mushrooms you first have to dehydrate them.  Then rehydrated the mushrooms before cooking. Why?  I’m not a biologist or chemist but I would imagine it has something to do with the cell walls.

If you try to cook fresh wood ears it will take an inordinately long time.

So we had to first dehydrate these mushrooms.  First and foremost we had to clean them.  Get the dirt and bugs off of them.  Then you have to cut off any blemishes and the tough part of the mushroom that connects to the log it was growing on.

After this, we cut it into strips and laid it on the silicone mats in our dehydrator.

Sometimes when you buy this mushroom off of Amazon it may come dried whole or in strips so we decided to make it easy for cooking later on and cut them into strips.

We dried the fungus on a low heat in the dehydrator overnight and it had dramatically changed in appearance.  Black on one side, grey on the other!  Now I know why the Chinese call it the black fungus!

So how to cook it?  Well as with anything else the sky is the limit but we decided to follow a traditional Chinese preparation for the fungus and did a cold salad.

First, we rehydrated the fungus in a bowl of cold water for 5 to 6 hours or until they had doubled or tripled in size.  We then added them to a pot of boiling water and cooked them for a few minutes and drained them into a colander.

We added sliced red bell peppers, sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, cilantro, lime juice, and sriracha, into a bowl with the mushrooms and let the flavors meld for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, it was amazing.  I say unfortunately because it was so good I forgot to take pictures until it was completely gone!

The mushroom seemed to soak up the flavor of the added ingredients while also showcasing a deep rich woodsy flavor.  This was an amazing mushroom!  Do not pass on this antisemitic mushroom!