Hen of the woods aka maitake is my second favorite mushroom, these taste like chicken and have close to a chicken texture as well. I found this while walking in the rain last fall. I thought someone had lost a hat as i saw the white fluffy mass out of the corner of my eye. Maitake like to grow at the base of hardwood trees, so in the fall keep an eye out on the base of trees and you might get a good meal out of it. One thing to note is that gnat maggots also like this (see second picture of the lil suckers stuck to the side of my hat that i harvested the maitake in). To get rid of these maggots i soaked the mushroom in salt water for a few hours then did a flash boil in water.
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Intersting
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I might get a growing kit for maitake to avoid the bugs found in the wild ones.
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None of the bracket-type fungi in my country are edible, as far as I know. Some of the toadstool-type mushrooms are edible and that is all. These are beautiful
Some might be medicinal but most are too woody to eat.
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I'm growing this on BRF cakes in mason jars. Seems to be working alright so far, but the jars haven't fully colonized after almost a month. I'm keeping them next to the stove now, so hopefully the extra heat will help. I might try fruiting some from the cakes directly, but my plan is to break them up into a different medium, possibly coco coir or straw.
I'm pretty excited as I've never knowingly eaten these before! My uncle said that he has had chicken of the woods before, and won't eat it again because it tasted exactly like chicken (weird logic).
Good luck i know fungi.com sells indoor grow kits for these. It seems tge domestic raised ones have a blander taste than wild ones i've harvested, but its a subtle difference.
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