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PURGATORY AT DURANGO MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2013 Several people found puffballs, or maybe some artist\u2019s conks \u2013 but the lucky ones found enormous hawks wings, highly prized king boletes or the ever-coveted Rocky Mountain chanterelles. They proudly showed off their take, and put them in their baskets.<\/p>\n
About 30 mushroom lovers gathered Sunday at the top of Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort in the San Juan National Forest to follow the lead of locally renowned mycology authority Chris Ricci of Majesty Mushrooms.<\/p>\n
Ricci, who said he fell in love with mushrooms through his mother\u2019s cooking, has spent his life studying the varieties growing in forests across the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helped to live in some of the mushroom hot spots of North America, like the Smoky Mountains, or Appalachia, or the Pacific Northwest,\u201d he said, while casually strolling through gladed Colorado forests under thundering a sky at 9,000 feet.<\/p>\n
Ricci began studying mycology in his youth, bringing home specimens to identify.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d bring them home and put them on wax paper,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took me years before I absolutely, positively identified a mushroom, and then another year or two before, I absolutely, positively identified a mushroom I could eat. You have to learn each one, and that\u2019s how I learned them, one by one.\u201d<\/p>\n
While gatherers dispersed slowly into the woods, baskets in hand, a steady stream would rush back to him with their finds, asking what this was or that, if it\u2019s edible or not. To anyone interested, he unleashed an encyclopedic wealth of information.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want people to be in the forest,\u201d he said. \u201cTo learn about the forest and the carbon cycle, which is what mushrooms really are all about \u2013 recycling carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surrounded by tall spruce and fur and standing on a carpet of lush undergrowth, Ricci explained the role of the much-overlooked fungus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important to understand the carbon cycle,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the CH and the O \u2013 the carbohydrates \u2013 the sugars, and that\u2019s what these mushrooms are doing, trading sugar \u2013 carbohydrates \u2013 with the trees. A whole host of these mushrooms are actually breaking down the carbs stored in wood of the tree to turn it back into soil and carbon dioxide in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarah Wright, a self-described jack-of-all-trades with Durango Natural Foods Co-op who puts on the series of educational walks and talks from alternative health care to homemade condiments, said people return for Ricci\u2019s hunts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way this class is, people tend to come back,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s very knowledgeable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most were hopeful for a few handfuls of chanterelles, and many were rewarded. The king boletes, sizable dark orange dense things, also called porcinis, were carried out by a few happy hunters.<\/p>\n
Ingrid Lincoln, of Mancos, said she couldn\u2019t wait to saute hers with oil and onions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlice them into thin, little slices,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re so delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricci called them the little pork steaks of the forest.<\/p>\n
Not only do many find mushrooms tasty, they see other benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these mushrooms aid our immune systems,\u201d Ricci said. \u201cThey\u2019re anti-viral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some studies show eating mushrooms can reduce growth of cancer cells.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying not to confuse people. It\u2019s important for people to know to not eat mushrooms that you haven\u2019t identified,\u201d Ricci said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to be safe. There are some poisonous mushrooms out there \u2013 not very many, but it only takes one bad mushroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
While toadstools seem to hide in plain sight, edible or not, Ricci\u2019s fascination with them is easy to find. A member of the group approached him with an exotically odd, colorful specimen.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmanita muscaria,\u201d Ricci said. \u201cThe reindeer mushroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the reindeer had ceremonial purposes but knows they aren\u2019t good eating. The Rocky Mountains hold at least 14 varieties, however, that are.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love finding them and eating them,\u201d he said, \u201cand before I knew it, I knew them all.\u201d<\/p>\n