Urban foraging is growing in popularity, but beware, poisonous mushrooms are common in Hamilton

Study the forest floor and be as attentive as possible, these folks say. What do you see? What do you smell?

You may see Calvatia gigantea, usually known as giant puffball mushrooms, which are common finds in forested areas during late summer and fall, or Laetiporus sulphureus, also known as chicken of the woods mushrooms. If you're not into fungi, sumac, wild asparagus, or black walnuts might be on your mind.

As an urban forager, the trip's success depends on having a keen eye, excellent research skills, and the ability to create recipes based on local harvests.

Still, it can also be deadly, especially with wild mushrooms.

Foraging, or the practice of wandering in search of edible plants, has become a trending topic on social media. On TikTok alone, the hashtag #Foraging boasts over 350 million views.

Since the start of the pandemic, the practice has grown in popularity in Hamilton, too, as people had more time to go for walks during quarantine last March. People started to notice more of what's around," said Christopher Arndt, a Hamiltonian who has nearly 10 years of experience foraging in the escarpment.

Local foraging communities began to develop, including a Facebook group, Hamilton Area Foragers, which has gained nearly 200 members in 14 months who share their harvests, tips for scouting edible plants and help other foragers identify their finds.

Foraging is not a quick process, but it's a very formative and educational one," Arndt said. You begin to learn the patterns of nature, which plants are safe to consume and how to best support the environment and forest-dwelling animals while harvesting, he said.

For example, a responsible forager won't pick more than one-third of their finds, and conservation areas are off-limits.

You have to be in tune with the seasons, too. In the spring, Arndt scouts for wild asparagus, fiddleheads and mushrooms, while berries and fruits are plentiful in the summer. Come fall, nuts, mushrooms and rose hips are at their peak.

While finding rare plants, like Morchella, which are also known as morel mushrooms, is fun, Arndt says they often don't live up to the high expectations you set for them. To me, the more valuable moments" are the ones where you go from knowing nothing to knowing something over the course of the day."

He's talking about one instance where he found inky cap" mushrooms or Coprinopsis atramentaria. Arndt picked them and brought them home, and throughout the day, he learned more about this indigo, lampshade-like mushroom and how to prepare them for consumption.

He confirmed their identity by creating a spore print," whereby a mushroom is placed on a piece of paper or aluminum foil for a few hours, ideally one full day. The mushrooms begin to drop their spores, leaving a print that resembles the different gills of the mushrooms and helps determine whether it's safe to eat.

Unlike the mushrooms in Super Mario Bros. games, fungi you find outside grocery stores might not give you an energy boost. Instead, you may end up falling severely ill or even die if you eat a poisonous one, and it's not always easy to tell the difference between their edible look-alikes.

Jianping Xu, a professor at McMaster University who studies fungi, said the mushrooms you pick up from a grocer are cultivated commercially, and they're tested and treated to ensure safety. Wild mushrooms aren't subject to the same standards because they're, well, wild.

Unless you know what to look for, spotting the differences between edible and poisonous mushrooms is complex.

There's about 100 species that cause people to die quickly after ingesting them, as they destroy some of our basic metabolism," said Xu. The beloved chicken of the woods mushroom has a poisonous counterpart, but unless you're knowledgeable on the differences between the two, you may be at risk, Xu said.

Poisonous mushrooms are common in Hamilton, including destroying angel mushrooms, which stop energy production in the body, Xu said. They also resemble the white mushrooms you can find in a supermarket. Symptoms include fever, diarrhea, dizziness and a complete shutdown of metabolism, he said.

On the odd chance you survive, you'll most likely have severe liver damage.

If you begin to feel symptoms like these after eating a mushroom you thought was safe, Xu said an immediate trip to a doctor is necessary, and pets aren't immune to their dangers either. It's best to keep an eye on your four-legged companions while on walks to ensure they don't consume anything.

Unless you've had (what you foraged) before and you're sure that's what it is, don't eat it. That's the bottom line," Xu said. You may also want to be wary of gifted wild mushrooms, especially if you don't know how to determine if they're safe or not.

While foraging seems to be a new trend, Jeff Karanfil, another Hamilton forager who enjoys a good crabapple harvest, noted it's not a new practice.

We've learned that you can survive without being surrounded by nature," he said. You can survive with grocery stores." This detachment from generations of knowledge of our surroundings, including which plants are safe to consume, is a relatively new phenomenon, Karanfil said.

Cultures have been doing this for thousands of years."

Alessia Passafiume is an intern reporter with The Spectator. Reach her via email: apassafiume@thespec.com