Ruby Anastasio started foraging when she was a little kid.
"We lived in Canada and I found morels in the yard every year, so I just became obsessed with it and I just spend a lot of time in the woods," Ruby said.
Ruby walks her dog every day in the woods of Brewster where she lives now and she says about 15 years ago, she started trying to learn one new edible mushroom every year.
"I did one mushroom at a time, and I got really confident in my identification. And then I'd move on to another one," she explained.
This year has been all about black trumpets — also known as the horn of plenty or the horn of death, but don’t let the name scare you. It’s rumored it comes from a folk story — that the shriveled, black and brown, horn-shaped fungi are trumpets played by the dead from underground. The mushrooms are common in our area between July and October.
"Okay, so this. We're getting close to my spot, and I, I find the black trumpets are really tricky to spot because they are like the same color as the leaves. They're the same cut, they're dark, and they grow along trails. I find them along trails that have mossy edges. That's my trick. So right here, I found quite a few black trumpets on this hill here. Let's see if we can find any."
The hill is covered in bright green sphagnum moss and black decaying oak leaves.
We see one! They're almost purple-y on the underside. Ruby describes it as a grayish hue. Another one is almost mahogany.
"They come in a lot of different shades, these ones all seem to be the same but I’ve seen them like light brown, and blonde even, lighter grays."
Ruby describes the texture as rubbery, but they're "thinner than most mushrooms."
It’s amazing how well-camouflaged the black trumpets are against the forest floor. They’re considered a choice edible — the rubbery texture holds up well to drying and softens with sautéing to release the mushrooms' rich, fruity, earthy flavor. Black trumpets tend to grow in association with red and white oak trees and as you heard sphagnum moss — and Ruby says she usually finds them at low elevations near wetlands, where there’s plenty of moisture in the soil.
The good news is black trumpets have no really close look-a-likes so they’re relatively easy to identify — although of course you should always confirm your specimens with someone who knows them well. Ruby says her family usually eats the black trumpets sautéed in butter and salt and pepper or folded into a cream sauce for pasta and they disappear so fast that she doesn’t bother trying to preserve them, but some years when it rains a lot and there’s a bumper crop, she puts them up by freezing them.
"I sauté them in olive oil and then I put them in a small Tupperware or jar and freeze them," she said.
Then come winter they’re ready to puree into a batch of Hungarian mushroom soup — Ruby Anastasio’s favorite.
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Here's the Hungarian Mushroom Soup recipe Ruby loves, which is from the Moosewood Cookbook. She uses a blend of foraged and frozen wild mushrooms to make it:
https://www.food.com/recipe/hungarian-mushroom-soup-from-the-moosewood-cookbook-135215
