Edible Mushrooms in New Brunswick
As the warmer weather arrives, many New Brunswickers are taking to the woods to forage for wild mushrooms, and who better to provide advice than Jessika Gauvin, President of Myco NB, New Brunswick's Mycological Society?
"The best locations depend on the season, but mature forests are very important for finding good mushrooms," says Gauvin. In the spring, stands of Poplar and Aspen trees are ideal, while conifer stands, such as Fir and Spruce, are best in the summer and even into the fall.
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Gauvin's passion for mushroom foraging in New Brunswick dates back to her childhood when she would search for wild edibles with her mother. In adulthood, she sought out herbs to help heal a disregulated nervous system due to stress and trauma. It was then that she discovered a mushroom with healing properties, which led her on a six-month-long search and ignited her love for mushrooms.
Gauvin emphasizes the importance of being able to differentiate between edible and toxic mushrooms. “There are no rules of thumb that can keep you safe, and one feature never tells you anything. You need to look carefully at the mushroom as a whole, all the features, and compare it to descriptions of edible and toxic fungi,” she said. “Lots of rules of thumb are floating around, and they all have at least one deadly exception." She recommends a safety net protocol: examining the entire mushroom, verifying features with multiple educational sources, and consulting experts for final identification.
Black Trumpets, Cesar's Mushrooms, and Chicken of the Woods are some of the rarer and more prized edible mushrooms in New Brunswick, but Gauvin points out that there are hundreds of other common edible and medicinal fungi in the region. Gauvin has an exciting year ahead, filled with guided tours, seasonal programming, full-day classes, and much more. Soon, her Spring Mushroom Foraging Program will launch in New Brunswick, offering web classes and in-person sessions that cover her favorite spring edibles, including both plants and mushrooms. So whether you're a seasoned forager or just starting out, make sure to keep Jessika Gauvin and Myco NB in mind as you head out into the woods this season. With her expertise (she also helps with emergency poison control cases worldwide), you're sure to have a successful and safe mushroom foraging experience in New Brunswick, filled with discoveries and new adventures.
