Not Mushroom for Error

I did it - after a significant amount of time and re-re-re prioritization, I finally achieved the Wild-foraged Mushroom Certification.  Allow me to rewind and to digress. Just to be clear, I love the work that I do and have no intention of muscle-ing out a local farmer or flag and tchotchke art crafter at the local farmers market with my overpriced one pound of Grifola frondosa (having consumed the other nineteen pounds) that I find recurring on my fallen oak. Instead I try (at least with some resounding lip service) to attempt a growth mindset and take a risk with the intention of learning something.  For me that typically translates into nail biting and multiple attempts at an IT certification, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed the process. Let me explain.

To start - this program (Midwest American Mycological Information – Wild-foraged Mushroom Identification) is designed to maintain a safe and healthy food supply with wild foraged mushrooms.  I would recommend this knowledge for anyone interested in either foraging for commercial use (required) or for your own personal use without myco-fear.  The reason is that there is a deluge of information on mycology on the internet that has its own incredulity, as in the survival bias based "wisdom" (ex. Gyromitra id's you will come with comments like "I have been eating them my whole life, and nothing has happened to me" (Please don't - see Class C PoisIndex)), to the sage advice of "those look like what I had for dinner last night", from a single picture without any key attribute information by an individual in a different region.

Secondly, and for me most importantly, I just enjoyed the workshop.  There is nothing better than being in a room with folks passionate about Fungi and their own knowledge to share.  The MAMI program administrator Heather ran our workshop, and her sections were fantastic due to all her field experience.  There was also a representative from the Michigan Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Development, to provide color on commercial sales and cottage industry manufacturing of products.  Lastly the president of MAMI, Dr. Bonito carried us through the mycology with taxonomy and fungi lifecycle, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

If you are interested in learning more, please look at the workshop, or jump in the deep end and try your hand at the certification.  You will receive all the material (book and study cards) to help you quickly identify some key edible mushrooms and foster a better understanding of the woods around you.  Lastly, I really appreciated this diagram of the mushrooms by season (link), but I knew for both studying and remembering quickly what I "might" find by month, I would need to re-pivot.  I created this image from that source to help.

As always, "Grow passion by vision, knowledge through curiosity, and wisdom with compassion".

And most importantly thanks for reading!