Make $5000/day picking mushrooms

[wtmusic]

Because of a heavy wildfire season in Alaska, normally rare gourmet mushrooms are sprouting up in profusion. Fires provide nutrients and very specific conditions which bring them out. The conditions have yet to be duplicated by commercial mushroom farmers.

My sis, who works for the National Park Service, told me about a family of migrant workers who drove up from southern California in a pickup truck and picked 900 lbs of Morels in one day, netting about $5G. The mushrooms are dried in container trucks and flown to Europe (as she was watching them unload their bounty a report for the LA Times asked to interview her for an upcoming article).

The new gold rush?

[mike_c]

1. 900 lbs of wild morels....

Be still my beating heart! Oh!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. cool. Wish I lived closer.

[AwakeAtLast]

5. You just have to know the right Midwesterners

who happen to know where their secret family spot is! :)

Unfortunately, if I told you I would have to kill you. I would let you eat the morels first. :P

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Thanks. At least I would die after a great meal

:9

[gollygee]

3. They used to grow in my backyard

but only for about 3 years, then they never grew again. And it didn't occur to me to try to sell them until after they stopped growing. *sigh*

[MissB]

4. In Oregon

we've had shooting incidents with people who were mushroom hunting and decided that someone was encroaching on "their" territory. Hopefully that doesn't happen up there.

[DeaconBlues]

6. Got to love the morels

If it was guaranteed good eats and money I would drop everything in a minute and go. But, like the original gold rush, I've got a feeling there will be a lot of disappointed opportunity-seekers.

[sasquatch]

8. You sure those aren't the mushrooms Bill Hicks preferred?

:hippie:

[wtmusic]

9. I think those grow in the desert

and are worth even more

[sasquatch]

10. He says his grew on cow turds

Now I raised cattle for years and don't remember mushrooms that grew out of cow turds.

[Deja Q]

11. That's 18 cents a pound for their efforts.

Sold on the market for how much again, what with these fungi things being "rare, gourmet"?

[wtmusic]

14. It's $5.55/lb nt

[supernova]

12. Grow your own Perigord Truffles

The Perigord truffle, usually grown in France and Spain, is one of the most prized delicacies in the world. Small and black with a nubby surface, the truffle closely resembles an animal dropping. That resemblance is in appearance only. Truffles have an intense aroma that permeates everything around them, and that aroma and flavor have made the truffle an ingredient with an almost mythical stature in European cooking.


Since the early 1800s, truffles have been cultivated in Europe, but producing them in areas where they are not indigenous is quite difficult. The truffle grows under the ground around trees that have the fungus growing on the roots, either naturally or by inoculation. For the chemistry that produces a truffle to occur, the soil must be an exact pH, and the climate must be temperate and not too wet or too dry. If all these factors are in place, land, money and years of patience must still be invested before a truffle is produced. But the reward for successful truffle cultivation is substantial. This year, the retail price for fresh black Perigord truffles in some markets rose above $2,000 a pound.

Franklin Garland, who looks to be in his 50's and has the faintest trace of a Spanish accent from growing up in Guatemala, has all the charisma of a salesman when he's talking about truffles. "North Carolina could be to truffles what Napa is to wine," he says. I am skeptical, but when he shaves a truffle for me to taste, I want to believe. The taste is musky, nutty, powerful, earthy and full, and it almost goes to your head. There is something about a truffle that is intoxicating, as if all the mystique it carries can actually be tasted. I have tasted truffles before in cooking, and I suspect that most of the flavor in those instances came from truffle oil (oil that has been infused with truffles). But I have never before had fresh truffle alone and uncooked. The intensity makes me giddy.

More at:

http://indyweek.com/durham/2004-03-17/dish2.html

[goodboy]

13. I wonder if there are any 'other' kind of mushrooms growing there?