I've been eating cats while staying with my parents in rural Arkansas. Cats? Yes! The great Swollen-stalked Cat mushroom, Catethelasma ventricosa. Come into my post for a forest-to-table feast foraged from their Arkansas homestead, featuring this week's Steemit Iron Chef ingredient -- oranges!
Gathering Cats from an Arkansas Forest
My parents live in the middle of a mixed pine and hardwood forest in north-central Arkansas. They like to eat the wild food around them, just like me. Every autumn, they look forward to gathering Swollen-stalked Cats -- a large, sturdy, and tasty wild mushroom. The mushrooms pop up through the needle-covered forest floor every autumn. Even when it's been dry, like this year.
Gathering Nuts and Weeds
My parents' homestead has other wild treats, too. There is a small American Chestnut shrub. It's nothing compared to the large Chestnut trees that dominated the region before Chestnut blight decimated them decades ago. But their scrubby shrub still produces a good crop most years.
And there are lots of Black Walnut trees, too. I like their strong flavor better than English walnuts. But they are hard to crack and it takes real skill to extract their potent nuts in large pieces.
I gathered some common weeds from their yard, too. Wild chives are everywhere in any open grass, all winter long. Lemon balm is an invasive garden escape artist, just like in Oregon. And there was a little Chickweed, too. That's enough for a great lunch!
A Forest-to-Table Feast!
My salad was easy to make. I just finely chopped the chives and lemon balm and mixed that with thin slices of fresh orange. After marinating for about an hour, I laid the oranges on a bed of tender chickweed and topped it all with black walnut pieces. My mom loved this salad! Well, so did everyone, lol.
The wild cat steaks were easy to make, too. I sauteed them in butter until they were well-cooked, all the way through. Compared to other mushrooms, these cats don't lose much water or size when they are cooked. Then I squeezed in the juice and pulp of an orange, and added crumbled-up roasted chestnuts, with a little more butter. I cooked all that until the orange juice turned into a lightly carmelized glaze.
We had big mess of these mushroom steaks and orange salad for lunch. It was a big hit with my parents! But I will admit that these Cat mushrooms are good to eat so many different ways -- and they are always delicious.
What Do You Think?
- Do you like oranges in salads?
- Have you ever found or eaten any Catethelasma mushrooms?
- Do you forage for any mushrooms?
- Would you eat my wild cat steaks and orange weed salad?
I eat a lot of wild plants and show you how, because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wild places.
I would like Steemit to be the premier site for Foraging on the Internet! If you have any thoughts about foraging, or experiences to share, write a post and be sure to use the Foraging tag. And check out the @foraging-trail to see curated quality posts about foraging. Happy Foraging!
Thanks @progressivechef for creating the Steemit Iron Chef contest series!
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Plant List
- Swollen-stalked Cat mushrooms - Catethelasma ventricosa
- American chestnut - Castanea dentata - nuts
- Black walnut - Juglans nigra - nuts
- Wild chives - Allium schoenoprasum - leaves
- Chickweed - Stellaria media - tender leaves and stems
- Lemon balm - Melissa officianalis - tender leaves
- Oranges - Citrus × sinensis - fruit
