How do you like your mushrooms? In soups, salads and entrees? Or do you go a little more wild and make them the unexpected main ingredient of ice cream and pastries and even beer?

You’ll not only experience the subtle, delicious and diverse flavors of wild mushrooms, but learn all about identifying and foraging for them on Sunday at the annual Wild Mushroom Festival, now in its 15th year at Mystic’s Denison Pequotsepos/Coogan Farm Nature & Heritage Center.

Admission to this nature center fundraiser includes tastings of wild mushroom delicacies prepared by 10 area restaurants; wild mushroom walks led by members of the CT Valley Mycological Society (mushrooms gathered from their morning foray will be on display); and talks on wild mushrooms and foraging led by “The 3 Foragers,” a Norwich husband, wife and daughter team — Karen Monger, Robert Gergulics and Gillian Gergulics (age 11) — who are experts on foraging wild mushrooms and wild plants. They also will present two programs at the event: Mushroom ID for Beginners and Edible Wild Mushrooms of Connecticut.

Cooking with ’shrooms

Susan Champouillon began participating in the Wild Mushroom Festival four years ago when she left Brooklyn, New York, moved to Westerly, and opened Maize ‘n Manna Wholefoods, a bulk organic market that sells vegan and gluten-free prepared meals.

“I just love it,” she says. “It’s my favorite event of the whole year — it’s so cool. And the diversity of people it attracts is incredible — from crunchy, earthy people to fine diners that go to restaurants that make gourmet (dishes) out of wild mushrooms.”

Champouillon’s specialty is soups, and she makes a “really great and simple” wild mushroom and herb soup, mushroom chowder, mushrooms with white beans and kale soup and, for this year’s festival, she’s serving buckwheat, spinach and mushroom soup. She also makes entrees such as broccoli and mac and cheese with mushrooms and a roasted mushroom quiche with potatoes and green beans that’s egg-less with a crust made from almond flour and oats.

It’s the diversity of textures — some are more fibrous and some more creamy — as well as the flavors that Champouillon especially likes when cooking with wild mushrooms.

“Some are almost gamey, and make a great meat substitute, and some have a little metallic edge to the flavor, like cilantro,” she says. “People always think mushrooms are earthy, but a lot of them have a brighter flavor. Last year I cooked and pureed puffball mushrooms (Calvatia gigantea) into a cream sauce base. They look like giant marshmallows — they’re 9 inches in diameter — and have a very mild, neutral flavor. I made a no-dairy mushroom lasagna with the cream sauce and rice flower pasta noodles, nut-base ricotta cheese, garlic and herbs and slices of different roasted wild mushrooms.”

Champouillon notes that the flavors of some mushrooms are quite subtle. Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream makes a mushroom ice cream every year that people insist is devoid of mushrooms, tasting only its chocolate-y, earthy flavor; Zest Fresh Pastry does sweet and savory pastries that people also don’t realize are made from mushrooms.

Karen Monger of The 3 Foragers, who also cooks regularly with wild mushrooms, advises people not to think of them all as the same.

“The Black Trumpet is delicate and tastes of iron-y red meat, while the Winecap is more comparable to a grocery store Portobello,” she says.

She suggests that people cook any wild mushroom over low-to medium heat in a neutral fat like sunflower oil, butter or olive oil until they’re thoroughly cooked to establish a base flavor profile for that particular mushroom before creating recipes.

For example, “The Hericiums mimic crab meat,” she says, “the edible Boletes pair well with butter or dehydrate fantastically for use in winter-time mushroom soups, while Chanterelles are nutty and buttery, and Maitake are fantastic meat mimics (like chicken) in texture and flavor, so much so that we use them for ‘chicken’ wonton filling, ‘chicken’ salad, or even ‘Maitake’ jerky.”

Champouillon agrees that Maitake (also known in this part of the world as “Hen-of-the-Woods’) is a very tasty meat substitute, adding, “It’s a common edible medicinal mushroom that’s very plentiful in the local area if you know where to look. And they share many of the same suspected health benefits as Reishi (aka Ling Zhi), like inhibiting cancer cell growth, lowering blood sugar, reducing ovarian cysts, hay fever and high blood pressure.”

She lists other health benefits of mushrooms in general as being “high in zinc, low fat, high fiber, high in potassium and other minerals.”

Warning label

Foraging for your own fungi is fun and can save you a lot of money, as exotic wild mushrooms can cost $30 a pound and more, but Champouillon and Monger strongly agree that this is serious business and declare it mandatory for new foragers to learn to identify wild mushrooms before picking or consuming any.

“You must absolutely identify wild mushroom to 110 percent certainty,” Monger notes, “as there are deadly poisonous mushroom that grow in Connecticut, including Amanita bisporigera, Amanita phalloides and Galerina marginatus.”

She adds that there are also some mushrooms that may not kill you, but will make you extremely ill if eaten. These include Omphalotus illudens, Gymnopus species, some Boletes, some Cortinarius species and other Amanita species.

Monger suggests joining a local mycological society to learn how to hunt wild fungi. The Connecticut Valley Mycological Society collects from May through November, holding forays on many Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at state parks throughout Connecticut. More information can be found at http://www.cvmsfungi.org/membership.html.

WILD MUSHROOM, BUCKWHEAT & SPINACH SOUP

3 cups Button, Crimini or Portobello mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thin, approximately a quarter-inch

3 cups fresh wild mushrooms, such as King Trumpet, Bolete, Morels, Oyster,

Wine Cap and/or Black Trumpet; cleaned and rough chopped into quarter-inch to half-inch pieces.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups onion, chopped into quarter-inch pieces

2 large cloves garlic, crushed (2 teaspoons)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup celery, sliced thin

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon marjoram

2 teaspoons thyme

1 cup buckwheat groats (Kasha)

1/4 cup Bragg Liquid Aminos or low-sodium soy sauce

2 cups tightly packed fresh spinach, rough chopped 

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Put all mushrooms in roasting pan. Toss with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Roast for 20 minutes. Drain and save juice. Roast 10 minutes more. Drain and save juice again.

While mushrooms cook, heat oil in a large 8-quart soup pot. Add onion and sauté over medium heat for 10 minutes.

Add garlic, black pepper and celery and sauté 10 minutes more. Add 1/2 cup water.

Cover and let cook over medium heat 10 minutes.

Add nutmeg, marjoram and thyme. Stir well and add reserved mushroom juice, 8 cups water, 1/4 cup Bragg Liquid Aminos or low sodium soy sauce, buckwheat and spinach.

Bring to a simmer, cover, turn heat low enough to just keep the simmer going, and cook for 20 minutes.

Add more salt and pepper to taste and serve.

— Courtesy of Maize ‘n Manna

What: 15th annual Wild Mushroom Festival

When: Sunday, from 1 to 4 p.m.

Where: Denison Pequotsepos/Coogan Farm Nature & Heritage Center, 109 Pequotsepos Road, Mystic

Participating restaurants: Mystic’s Captain Daniel Packer Inne, Gray Goose Cookery, Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream, and Mystic Boathouse restaurant; Stonington’s Milagro Café and Zest Fresh Pastry; Westerly’s Maize ‘n Manna Wholefoods and Bridge Restaurant and Raw Bar; Preston’s Maple Lane Farms; Ledyard’s Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center’s Pequot Café; and Pawcutuck’s Cottrell Brewing Co., which will make oyster mushroom beer for the event. Live music by The Root Farmers.

Cost: $20 for adults (includes 10 food tickets) and $10 for children ages 2-13 (5 food tickets). Advance tickets are available online at www.dpnc.org/calendar or can be purchased at the gate.