In September 1969, Dick and I began our year in the wilderness on the edge of the BWCWA in the Superior National Forest. Our small cabin had neither road access nor amenities. This is a reprint of one of many stories about our lives during that special year.
“Look at those mushrooms! They’re huge!” Al bent to his knees and peered into the underbrush.
Dick and I hadn’t noticed the mushrooms, but they were everywhere, sprouting under logs and popping out from under the fallen leaves. We were crossing the portage with Al, a slightly strange man, who lived on Gunflint Lake. Al was a pleasant but eccentric bachelor who visited us frequently during our year in the woods. He often brought unusual hostess gifts, beaver meat being the most interesting. The three of us had been on our way to the cabin when he suddenly went crazy.
We stared at him, confused. “I’ve never seen so many of these mushrooms and so big. We’ve got to pick them,” he explained. “Don’t worry. I know only one species. They’re safe to eat, and I know them well. C’mon. Start picking.”
He was normally a very passive man, and I’d never heard him give orders, so I dropped to the forest floor and started picking. I filled a bandana handkerchief.
Dick filled his hat and Al took off his ancient, neversaw the-inside-of-a-washingmachine cap and used it as a mushroom container. When all our hats were full, we filled jacket pockets until we could find no more receptacles.
Al talked excitedly as we canoed down the lake. Mushrooms were one of his favorite dishes, and he’d show me how to cook them. They’d be delicious, he said. And did we know just how lucky we were to have stumbled upon this cache?
When we reached the cabin, Al tutored Dick briefly as to the dos and don’ts of mushroom appearances, and they sat on the deck. Al occasionally tossed out a questionable mushroom and supervised Dick in a supremely relaxed fashion.
Dick has a vivid recollection of asking “How about this one? It’s got pinkish gills?”
“Oh throw that one out,” said Al casually, without missing a beat. Dick wondered. Were they finding all the poisonous ones? He didn’t ask. Sometimes you have to have faith.
Following Al’s instructions, I hauled out the cast iron frying pan and browned onions in bacon fat (in those days, all good cooks kept a bacon fat supply). When they brought me the mushrooms, I gently sautéed them with the onions.
When the mushrooms reached an appropriate level of tenderness—Al supervised this stage—I lifted the pan from the heat at the exact proper moment. Finally, we sat down to feast. Mushrooms were the sole entrée and rightly so. I have never again tasted mushrooms as rich and flavorful as these. Al was right. We had stumbled onto a treasure.
There the story should end, but human nature being what it is, there was a slight anti-climax—
As Al departed on his usual trek through the forest to the Gunflint Trail, he said, “If you see buzzards circling over the woods tomorrow, come looking for my body.” He then laughed heartily and assured us that the mushrooms had been okay and very safe.
“Ha, ha!” We joined his laughter and waved goodbye.
“He was joking, wasn’t he?” I asked. Dick told me the story of the casual sorting of pink-gilled mushrooms. The idea of poisonous mushrooms filled my head, accompanied by a gurgling stomach.
What if I had accidentally eaten a bad mushroom? Al probably wasn’t as frightened of death as I. He was a veteran of WWII. What if Al’s judgment was wrong? I glanced at Dick. He was slightly green around the mouth.
“Does your stomach feel funny?” I asked.
“Yea, but it’s probably my imagination.”
We listened to our stomachs bubble for several hours until they finally settled down.
Once we knew we weren’t going to die, Dick assessed the problem. “We ate too much too fast.”
Were the delicious most wonderful-tasting mushrooms I’ve ever eaten worth the worry?
Probably.
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