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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Boletus Pallidus

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in MinnesotaHere’s a great mushroom to keep your eyes peeled for when the boletes start popping: Boletus pallidus or the pallid bolete. You don’t hear about it much, and it took me a number of years just to find them, but now that I have a couple spots to check after a good, hard rain comes where I live in Minnesota I’ve improved my odds, and have been able to get a good enough number of them to warrant reccomending them.

Pallidus, like the name implies, has a pallor to it, not in the sense of looking sickly, but having a sort of paleness, lack of color, or strictly having colors that are tame and muted, in my opinion.

I first learned about them when my good friend Mike, (who also wrote this great book here) brought a bag with him to give me when I opened my first restaurant, the Salt Cellar. I was grateful for the nice bag of perfect boletes, but I adnitedly I was also just a little jealous I hadn’t found them myself.

I lucked out the next year after we had a couple nice days of rain in Northern Minnesota. A fruitless hunt for saffron milkcaps turned into a hunt for Leccinum subglabripes, and while I was scouring one of the new patches I’d found, I saw a couple pale looking boletes.

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota

In the Field

Immediately I knew it was pallidus, and, if you’re a hunter whose been looking for something new and finally found it, you know the excitement that comes with that. The patch was a good one, and I’ve been able to come back just about every year in the middle of summer when the boletes come up in earnest. Here’s a few points on Boletus pallidus, which I recommend cross-referencing with a guide or something like mushroomexpert.com.

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota

Habitat

I find mine in the northwoods of Minnesota, specifically mixed woods with oaks, aspen, conifers, maple and birch. They seem to enjoy the same type of habitat that leccinum subglabripes and a number of other boletes, some conifer loving. As other resources have pointed out though, the pallidus seems to be (and was definitely in my case) mycorhyzal/symbiotic with oak, and If I remember correctly, Northern Red Oak.

ID Characteristics

The hardest part for me wasn’t ID’ing them, since I was primed to see them, the hardest part was just getting to them at the right place and time. That being said, there’s a couple different things that set them apart from other similar looking boletes.

Pallid

They’re pale, overall looking a bit void of color. This is pretty self-explanitory.

“Olive-colored pores”

I don’t know what type of olives mycologists were thinking of when they came up with this Identification characteristic, but it’s a little confusing. What they mean is a type of yellow that may fade to greenish with age, from what I can gather.

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota

The pores will bruise blue when cut or intentionally bruised. It’s hard to pick out the yellowish/olive color of the pores, since mine were relatively young in this picture, but it’s there, albeit slight.

Blue/grey staining and red stem colorations

The pores will stain blue/grey, slowly. Now the confusing part, the flesh may stain slowly, or not at all. For reference, mine haven’t been staining except with the pores, which you’ll see in the picture below. Also take a look at the bottom portion of the stem and the red/brown coloration. Apparently the red/brown can be present or absent, which is a bit confusing, but not as confusing as blewits!

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota
Note that the pores stain gently blue/grey, but the flesh does not.
Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota
Note the absence of staining. The red on the stem may be present or absent.

Cooking

For me, these have been ok fresh, not as good as porcini, but not ho-hum like a slippery jack, so to speak. That being said they seemed to have a greater resistance to bugs, which is always great. Like most of the boletes I pick, these go straight into the dehydrator, but unfortunately, after drying, they’re flavor could, be better, they definitely aren’t up to par with a any porcini type mushroom or leccinum, which are probably my two favorite types of boletes.

I do like cooking boletes fresh on occasion, but the flavor is so much stronger dried that I find it disspointing to cook them fresh sometimes. That, combined with the fact that generally when these are fruiting there are many other mushrooms to pick and eat fresh that are quite good that don’t need or like drying, add to my reccomendation to dry them.

Boletus pallidus mushrooms harvested in Minnesota

Related

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mary

    September 7, 2021 at 5:40 pm

    Hey Alan! I think I found a bunch of these. Everything matches, they were next to a bunch of Edulis — but the tops seemed to get darker after I picked them. Some bruised and some did not, but the caps are very soft and smooth, unlike exults. I tasted and there is no noticeable taste, but they smell good.. Could these be Pallidus? Everything about them is the same, but a very delicate cap that has gotten a bit darker.

    Reply
    • Gene

      January 1, 2022 at 8:19 am

      The cap does seem to darken as pallidus grows older. At about the same time that the pores become more olive in color. Rain/moisture may darken the cap as well.

      Reply

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
James Beard Award ‘22
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Alan Bergo
Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water by hand with Sam Thayer and @danielvitalis for @wild.fed 

Daniel and Sam were the apex predators, but I got a few. 

Without a net catching crayfish by hand is definitely a wax-on wax-off sort of skill. Clears your mind. 

They’re going into gumbo with porcini, sausage and milkweed pods today. 

#crayfish #ninjareflexes #waxonwaxoff #normalthings #onset🎥🎬
Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizo Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizomes and blueberries for this weeks shoot with @wildfed 

Been a few years since I worked with these. Thankfully Sam Thayer dropped a couple off for me to work with. They’re tender, crisp and delicious. 

Sam mentioned their mild flavor and texture could be because they don’t have to worry about predators eating them, since they grow in the muck of cattail marshes. 

I think they could use a pet name. Pond tusk? Swamp spears? Help me out here. 😂

Nature makes the coolest things. 

#itcamefromthepond #cattail #rhizomes #foraging #typhalatifolia
I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so much we filmed it instead of the original dish I’d planned. 

Cooked natural wild rice (not the black shiny stuff) is great hot, cold, sweet or savory. It’s a perfect, filling lunch for a long day of berry picking. 

I make them with whatever I have on hand. Mushrooms will fade into the background a little here, so I use a bunch of them, along with lots of herbs and hickory nut oil + dill flowers. 

I’m eating the leftovers today back up in the barrens (hopefully) getting some more bluebs for another shoot this week w @wild.fed 

#wilwilwice #wildrice #chanterelles #campfood #castironcooking
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking it up with on-site garnishes. Beach pea flowers taste strong and leguminous, similar to vetch, or like a rich tasting pea shoot. 

#lathyrusjaponicus #beachpeas #peaflower #foraging #northshore #bts
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