Foraging Mushrooms with Goat Plum Tree Farm
What's being studied to prevent or cure cancer, save the bees, provide sustainable housing materials, clean up oil spills, and create our latest antiviral and antibiotic medications? Mushrooms! Well, actually fungi of all kinds.
I became fascinated with gourmet and medicinal mushrooms while living in Oregon. The northwest is a gigantic Thanksgiving cornucopia of different mushrooms. My friends and I would often pick several pounds of scrumptious chanterelles in an hour. Some say chanterelles smell like apricots.
When I moved to China to teach English in 2016, I found a plethora of fungal wonders in the local markets. I didn't have to go foraging anymore. I certainly missed my excursions to the old growth forests in Mount Hood National Park. China's chefs, restaurants, and hole-in-the-wall spots provided many unique mushrooms, and dishes to experience. I met my wife Anmei, from China, while living in Beijing.
On a 2019 trip to the grassland of Inner Mongolia, China, Anmei and I found some nondescript white mushrooms popping from the rolling green carpet of stubble. The grassland is so expansive that the horizon makes a 180 degree planetarium overhead. I remember her running from mushroom to mushroom, yelling with glee and throwing her arms in the air “Oh my gosh, another mushroom!
In January 2020, Anmei and I moved to Bishopville, Maryland, right before everything closed down, and everyone went into quarantine. Once home, I decided it was a great time to pursue my dream to start a small farm. Underfoot, there was a crop being raised that rekindled a familiar pastime- hunting wild mushrooms – which became the seed of an idea to lead mushroom foraging classes in Maryland!
Last autumn, we were so delighted to find so many amazing mushrooms on the farm. We decided to launch our classes teaching people to “fish in the forest” safely, teach about mushroom health benefits, and show people a different kind of hiking.
Our classes encourage people to get outside on the 500 plus acres of the farm, and experience a different side of the Eastern Shore. We teach safe methods for identifying delicious, gourmet, medicinal mushrooms that grow all around the shore, along with the latest research, health benefits, fascinating anatomy and evolution. Plus, after foraging, our guests can cook them in our earthen oven!
Follow Goat Plum Tree Farm on Facebook or Instagram for autumn dates and to sign up; or call 443-735-4575.
