The Worst Summer Meal of My Life

A cautionary tale that might take the fun out of fungus

Chicken-of-the-woods. My photo

It is a splash of bright orange in the middle of a dark summer forest. We have turned the corner of the trail and a beam of sunlight enters the forest in front of us, illuminating an oak stump that is studded with an orange shelf fungus that ladders its way up the wood. This is the mother lode, a chicken-of-the-woods mushroom bigger than any we have…