How to identify Golden Chanterelles, gourmet edible wild mushrooms

Identification difficulty: Intermediate

Warning: despite the frequency with which these are foraged, I feel that the risks associated have been downplayed. I personally believe there is the potential for confusion with deadly species. That said, I believe you can learn how to rule those out. 

Summer 2021 is turning out to be a nation-wide bumper year for the greater chanterelle family, which includes cinnabar red chanterelles, black trumpets, and, of course, golden chanterelles. 

Facebook foraging and mycology groups, Reddit foraging and mycology boards are all flush with pictures of, well, flushes of mushrooms. There's a lot of books, websites, etc out there that talk about how to identify golden chanterelles, so I wasn't really sure how necessary another post would be, but at the same time I'm seeing a lot of misinformation or incomplete information going around on social media. 

Overview and history

The term chanterelle can be used to describe a group of related genera (that's plural for genus): Cantharellus, Craterellus, Gomphus, and Polyozellus. Craterellus includes the black trumpets and yellow foot mushrooms, Gomphus includes the pig's ear, Polyozellus is a one-species genus that contains the blue chanterelle, and Cantharellus contains several species of golden chanterelles, red or cinnabar chanterelles, the smooth chanterelle and the white chanterelle. The lobster mushroom, Hypomyces lactifluorum, looks similar but it is unrelated and, while also being a choice edible, tastes completely different from chanterelles of any kind. 

For most people, however, when they think of chanterelles, only the golden chanterelle comes to mind. 

Golden chanterelles are a gourmet wild mushroom, one of the "big five" mushrooms that command the highest prices globally. The "big five" include truffles, matsutake, chanterelles, morels, and porcini. These are the five most expensive mushrooms for their CULINARY value; there are some fungi which sell for higher prices due to their use in Eastern medicine. 

We don't know exactly when humanity began it's love affair with the golden chanterelle. Asian, African and European cultures all have long histories of the mushroom, and we can safely assume it was eaten before it was recorded as well. In Europe, chanterelles were reserved for the nobility for many centuries.

Chanterelles are a mycorrhizal species, they grow in symbiosis with trees. This makes them very difficult and expensive to cultivate, as one would need to both own a forest and be willing to wait for decades while the trees and the fungi mature, before the fugal mycelium would grow mushrooms. 

At one point in time, all golden chanterelles were believed to be Cantharellus cibarius, and older books will still refer to them this way. With the advent of DNA testing, we now know that there are many, many kinds of golden chanterelles, some with sub-varieities, and that C. cibarius only grows in Europe. 

Golden Chanterelles as a group

Since "golden chanterelles" are a group, there are many, many color variations. There are species that are all golden or egg-yolk yellow, some that have white areas, such as a white stem, white gills or a white cap, and some that have those same variations except pink instead of white.

For the sake of this article, the term "golden chanterelle" will apply to any species that is 50% or more "egg-yolk yellow"., We won't be trying to identify individual golden chanterelle species, as all are edible, all are choice and they share many identification features. 

NOTE: Some chanterelles have a tan or deep yellow spot at the center of the cap. I would personally avoid these. And you must avoid all potential "chanterelle" species that have a cap or stem that is entirely tan or brown as it may be a potentially deadly look-alike in the genus Paxillus. Also spore print any all-yellow mushroom with decurrent gills where the stem seems thin for the cap size. 

Why I think chanterelles are an intermediate difficulty to ID

Overall, I think most foraging and mushroom hunting books leave out important potential look-a-like species for the chanterelle. They generally talk about false chanterelles, Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca, and jack o' lanterns, Omphalotus species, as the only real danger. Both these mushrooms can make you sick, Omphalotus can make you seriously sick, but neither will kill you. 

I'm more concerned about Paxillus species, which have the potential to be deadly poisonous. Paxillus are not super common and don't STRONGLY resemble chanterelles, at least not in America. However, there are yellow varieties in Australia, which could always make the cross-ocean trek on tree roots. And there are brown-yellow varieties in North America and Europe which we will go into in greater detail.

As I've said on the page where I define these terms, if I feel there is potential for confusion with a deadly species, then I consider it to be an intermediate difficulty identification. 

An Overview of the Genus Cortinarius (Telluride pt. 4)

Note: this post was intended to be a micro-post, but ended up being a summary of pretty much everything I know about the genus Cortinarius, so it'd quite a substantial post indeed!

One of my fellow mushroom hunters in Telluride told me they have a joke out there, that mushrooms that look like these are called "Jac" for "Just Another Cortinarius".

Though from my experience, they could also call them "Jacki" for "Just Another Cortinarius, Kick It". So many of these mushrooms we found had been kicked over, whether from frustration at finding another non-edible species, or as a lazy technique for checking the underside for identification, I'm not sure.

Cortinarius species, commonly called corts or webcaps, are the largest Genus of Agaric (gilled) mushrooms known. They are generally non-edible, some are deadly poisonous, and even the edible ones are generally considered to be poor eating.

Telluride Mushroom Festival pt3: the King Bolete

So for my 3rd micro-post about the mushrooms we found at the Telluride Mushroom Festival: our first-ever King Bolete, aka: Boletus rubriceps.

B. rubriceps was once thought to be B. edulis, which you may have heard of as the Porcini. It's also known as the Cep (France) or the pennybun (United Kingdom). However, DNA studies have shown that B. edulis is native only to Europe. Boletus rubriceps is a close relative, however, and considered to be part of the Boletus edulis "complex".

My husband found the only king bolete of the trip, we were at or around 10,500 ft, up on the side of Lizard Head. The foray lead told us that Amanita muscaria is frequently found nearby, and that its generally easier to find the red A. muscaria then it is to find the brown B. rubriceps, so to look for those, then look around.  (A muscaria is the bright red mushroom with the red spots that everyone thinks of when they think of a mushroom). Sure enough, he found the boletus within a few yards of where others were picking A. muscaria.

Telluride Mushroom Festival pt.2, Albatrellus ovinus

Hey everyone, welcome back for my second micro-post on what I learned and discovered at the Telluride Mushroom Festival!

This micro-post is about a new mushroom for me: Albatrellus ovinus.

Winter oyster mushroom identification tips for foragers, locavores and more! Easy winter foraging for wild food.

Identification difficulty: Novice

December 2016 saw an abundance of one of my favorite mushrooms: the winter oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus). I wasn't the only one finding abundant flushes, Instagram was filled with pictures from all over the country.

Winter oysters are one of the best edible mushrooms. They're frequently HUGE - I've found caps that are 9 inches across when fully mature, though 4 - 6 is more common. They have a super-dense, meaty texture, even more so than summer or store-bought oyster mushrooms. They make an exceptional vegan alternative to meat or seafood, especially when properly prepared. They are also great on the grill.

NOTE: there is another mushroom sometimes called the fall or winter oyster mushroom. It looks very similar to Pleurotus ostreatus, but it's actually totally different -- even in a different family. It's Latin name is Panellus serotinus, and it's edible too, but can be bitter, and requires a LOT of long, slooow cooking. It has a different stem and often a different color. Keep reading for more information.

While not exactly a beginner's mushroom, I personally consider the winter oyster mushroom to be a pretty straightforward identification, even for the novice. Summer oysters are actually harder to ID, because there are more similar looking species when it's warm. In just 5 simple steps, you too could be enjoying these tasty foraged mushrooms!

Making spore prints for wild mushroom identification, crafts, and science fun!

Hallo! So I ran a survey about 6 months ago, and I'm really really happy with the number of responses I got. To anyone who took it, thank you very much, I really appreciate the time you  put into helping me generate valuable content.

So the overwhelming thing people wanted to hear about was plant and mushroom identification. Another thing I got a lot of calls for were content more geared towards beginner and novice foragers.

One of the most foundational identification tools you'll need for wild mushrooms is knowing how to do a spore print.

What is a spore print?

All mushrooms reproduce with spores. Spores can be considered to be like seeds, except they are tiny--individually invisible to the naked eye. (There are other differences as well, but they aren't really relevant to foraging).

Though we can't see individual spores, they do have a color, and when a lot of them are together, the masses of spores form patches of color, which can be seen with your eye. Sometimes these colors are distinctive, and are a necessary tool to help positively identify one mushroom from another.

Many mushrooms look similar, but have different colored spores, so discovering the colors of the spores is the key to differentiating the species. For example, edible Blewits look similar to potentially deadly Cortinarius, but Blewits have a salmon pink spore print, and Cortinarius have a rusty brown one.