In fall, when I move my potted citrus trees inside till spring, I understand that it’s time to begin harming blewits. These quite edible fall mushrooms turn up in yards and in forests after a serendipitous mix of a cold wave and rain. Blewits feed upon fallen tree leaves and evergreen needles (they like wood chips, too), and the mushrooms appear in the exact same area yearly, typically in fairy-like rings, or clustered carefully. In the Northeast, they fruit in time for Thanksgiving supper. Slightly flavored and considerable, their juicy nature makes blewits a succulent alternative to canned mushroom soup (sorry, Campbell’s), because icon of the Thanksgiving table: the green bean casserole.
Here’s a guide to determining blewits, and a dish all set for the season.
Photography by Marie Viljoen
The name “blewit” normally describes 2 * types of mushroom. One is the so-called wood blewit, categorized as Lepista nuda and in some cases as Clitocybe nuda (the names are synonyms). The other, the field blewit, Lepista personality (likewise called Lepista saeva), is associated more with Europe. In spite of 2 typical names that appear to decree where your blewits need to grow, the so-called wood blewits I discover grow in large yards (near leaf-dropping trees) that look a lot like fields, to me.
For mushroom-hunting cooks desiring supper, the accuracy of names is lesser than understanding what a blewit appears like, and making certain that its spore print is white, or extremely pale. That’s an important inform, when identifying blewits from a possibly harmful lookalike.
* As the science of mycology progresses, more blewit types might be parsed.
Blewits are chameleons. When they are young the color of their cap, stem, and gills can consist of swoon-worthily deep or ethereally fragile tones of amethyst and lavender. However these vibrant colors might fade to pale enthusiast and cream, in some cases pale tan.
Observing that color change is essential to finding out how to recognize blewits, a view backed by MushroomExpert’s Michael Kuo
Important to determining blewits is the color of their spore print. A blewit’s spore print is white or extremely pale. Never ever brown.
To make a spore print in the house, slice the mushroom’s come from the cap. Lay the cap gill-side down on paper (a recycled shopping bag is ideal), foil, or cardboard. Cover the mushroom with an upturned bowl, or a fabric if you have lots, to safeguard the dust-like spore from drafts. Leave overnight. Unless the mushroom is ancient and has currently shed its spores in the field, in the early morning its spores will be perfectly organized in the shape of the gills.