CD, The Bahamas
“It’s a mushroom. It’s called hen of the woods. And it’s really good. The Italians absolutely love it. It usually grows on the foot of the oak and comes out this time of year. We haven’t had a good rain, which is good. So this mushroom, this ‘hen’ is the fruit of mycelium, right? It’s the fruit of a really big organism that connects all those trees. And it works symbiotically with all the trees. It pulls nutrients and manages water for them.
“You need mature oaks, and this island has old growth oaks, which are really rare around here. But this island has some beautiful old oaks and a lot of biodiversity. They’re red oaks, but there are a lot of different types of oaks here and they’re very old.
“I’d like to know a lot more about the trees. I’m working on it. It’s like if you learn to fish, then you learn where the fish lives and what it eats. And then you learn how they relate to each other. And then you learn all about the coral. Pretty soon you figure out it’s all a big, interconnected city. The same thing with the trees, but I’m a newbie on that.
“To prepare the mushrooms, I’ll soak them in water. Salamanders like them and live in them sometimes. So sometimes, if you’re not careful, you get salamander. Mostly you just soak them, get the dirt off them, because hen of the woods usually grow up through all the leaves and the undergrowth. Then you slice them up. They’re great with marinara, they’re great with some Italian sausage. Sautéed. It’s just a really good mushroom.
“There’s a saying, you got to look at a hundred mature oaks to find one ‘hen’. I found this behind a really big oak. I’d say there was a homestead there at one point, because there’s a rock wall, and behind the rock wall there’s a straight line of hundred-year-old oaks. Those oaks had plenty of light and not much competition and got really, really mature.
“I live in the Bahamas. I sailed up here last summer in my catamaran. I had a wonderful time. Met wonderful people. And turned around and went back to the Bahamas for winter. Last year we sailed really slowly up the coast to see all the old towns. This year I wanted to get here fast, so it took nine days. When I go back, I’ll visit the beautiful islands off Georgia that are just untouched.
[Looking over a Mack Point]: “They can make some room for all that industry right over there. Yes, absolutely.”
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