Puffball Mushrooms

Puffballs are easy to identify for the beginning mushroom hunter because there are no poisonous species. The larger puffballs grow on composted soil and meadows. Puffballs fist-sized or larger are unmistakable. Puffballs grow on the ground or on dead wood The best time for finding puffballs is in the fall.

They must be all-white inside. Any shade of yellow or purple makes them inedible . When you cut a puffball open, you’ll find no stem and no gills inside.

Peel the outside cover off before preparing. You can saute them, simmer them in soups, cook them with grains. Dip slices in a batter of egg and milk and cover with bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper and fry them up in butter or oil. They have a very earthy flavor and the unique taste will not disappear in a dish.

I saw them collecting them and preparing them on TV. I’d like to try them some day.

the woods are loaded with them now.
Was near orchards in Gays Mills

We have the white ones here too Len, big and small. Theres another puffball here that gets the same in size and its a brown one and their edible too. Theres also another mushroom here that people call the Cottage Cheese mushroom and their similar in size and color to the small white puffballs. They look like a small clump of Cottage cheese or a small florette or cauliflower on the ground and they don’t grow on trees unless its a badly decayed and rotting one laying on the ground. When you get into the Cottage cheese mushrooms you usually get into quite a few. A few years ago we got into a nice batch and picked around a 1/2 wheelbarrow full in about 1/2 hour. Those are better tasting then the puffballs, puffballs are ok though.

My wife was convinced we had morels growing in our yard this fall. she picked a bunch and brought them inside, thats when I searched and found out they are “stink horn mushrooms” they live up to their name.

LOL….A stinkhorn ain’t a morel.

Interesting how they spread their spores, though. The “stink” attracts flies, which land on the mushroom thinking it’s something that’s dead and rotting. They then fly away and voila! the spores are spread. Kinda neat.