The Horse Mushroom Race: There's A New Competitor!

Horse Mushrooms. Yes, the big one is over 6 inches wide!

The friend with the property for sale called to say more horse mushrooms (agaricus arvensis) had sprung up in the lawn and I should go and get them.

But when I got there, oh horrors, some thief had come and cut off all their heads, leaving all the stems.

My first reaction was, how stupid, there's so much meat in those stalks. My second reaction was, OMG, I've got competition!

I drove around to all my secret horse mushroom places, and the thief had done the same to most of them.

I managed to rescue the ones in the picture above, including that huge specimen.

I hope the thief doesn't like shaggy manes. They should be up soon.

P. S. Mushroom recipes are in this post.

More Wild Mushrooms

My best crop of wild mushrooms usually comes from the lawn of some friends who live about a 45-minute walk away, the perfect distance for a bit of exercise. I have their permission to pick any and all fungi from their property.

Usually, it's horse mushrooms. My favorites. Tasty, easy to identify, and given the right weather conditions, apt to grow to a phenomenal size. 

Like this.


I had just heard that they were selling their property, so this morning I headed over there to see if the latest rain had produced a crop. And indeed it had.

Fearful that some hired person might come and mow down my dinner, I picked all there was. Normally, I would have allowed them to grow a bit bigger. I'm greedy when it comes to horse mushrooms.

This is what I got.

Enough for a large, lovely frittata.

I gave the recipe for preparing and cooking wild mushrooms in this earlier post.