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

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Pig Ear Mushrooms / Gomphus clavatus and Friends

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus, a rare pig ear mushroom growing with oak

Gomphus clavatus has beautiful false gills, with a purple hue, hence one common name: violet chanterelle.

Mushroom hunter: “Hey Alan, do you know what mushroom this is?” Me: “Err, hold on, ok. Send me your GPS coordinates immediately along with panorama photos and no harm will come to you or your family.”

That sort of scenario is why I sift through plenty of ID requests and pics from random numbers every year. Every year it comes for me, at pretty regular times. In spring it’s Cerioporus squamosus / pheasant back mushrooms, late spring/early summer it’s Artomyces pyxidatus / crown-tipped coral.

I give help with what I know, and send the blurry, upside down ID requests off to search elsewhere in cyberspace and proper mushroom ID forums, along with those that I just don’t know. I don’t mind giving Identification help at all, it’s a fun game, keeps me sharp, in touch with friends, and, honestly, I made a bed out of mushrooms here, so it’s only fair I sleep in it, so to speak.

 
Edible pig ear mushrooms or gomphus clavatus (5)

Big and chunky, a bit like a chanterelle crossed with milkcaps.

In one of my first few years of hunting mushrooms, when most of my family still thought I was probably crazy, I was speaking with my great aunt, a long-time Wisconsonite at a family dinner. Unbeknownst to me, my great aunt and uncle were no strangers to harvesting food, and told me stories of picking lambs quarters, and, one particular mushroom.

“We used to pick pig ears”

I remember nodding, assuming to myself that a pig ear must be an obscure common name for a hen of the woods or something, and forgot about them.

The name stuck with me though, and somewhere along the line I put together that they were definitely not polypores, like hens, but Gomphoid mushrooms, Gomphus clavatus, or something very similar, which are a cousin to chanterelles, the same way that black trumpets are: different genus, but morphologically/visually similar in a number of ways, most noticeably the way they have false gills as opposed to true gills. Gomphus clavatus type mushrooms also have a beautiful purple tone that deepens with age.

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus, a rare pig ear mushroom or gomphus clavatus growing with oak

Even after I learned what they were, I never looked for them, since, in all the posts and pictures online for our local mushroom forums (a great way to keep up on the season remotely) not a single time did I see someone pick a pig ear gomphus, or ask for an ID on one in our region.

Habitat(s)

All that changed last year when I saw pictures of someone harvesting them in August in Wisconsin, as there’s nothing like some fresh mushroom envy to get you back on the trail.

I went out to a few pine woods I know, as many Gomphus, like their cousins, a notable chanterelle look-a-like Turbinellus/Gomphus flocossus / scaly orwooly chanterelles are typically pine associate mushrooms. I saw no Gomphus clavatus, no floccosus, or anything that looked like them.

Pig ear mushrooms or gomphus clavatus

West coast, pine loving Gomphus I ordered to cook with last year. Note the deep purple from maturity.

So, to educate myself, as with other mushrooms I’ve quested for, I ordered some from a purveyor to cook (my pal over at MushroomMilkLLC).

There’s nothing like touching, holding, cooking, and eating something to imprint yourself with a new ingredient before you try to find it growing wild and put it inside your body.

Bugs in a pig ear mushroom or Gomphus clavatus

Bugs were a bit of a problem with the mushrooms I ordered, but I was happy just to get them.

Back in my early kitchen days, this was how I learned to recognize Hen and chicken of the woods, a few boletes, chanterelles, and matsutake, among others. The pig ears were good, and I used them for a special dinner last year. Know ye this though, bugs love these things, and you want them with cool weather, young, like most mushrooms.

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus, a rare pig ear mushroom or gomphus clavatus growing with oak

These young mushrooms (Pseudocraterellus) barely have purple yet, also note the tan/buff cap margin.

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus A Rare Hardwood Loving Pig Ear

The magic though, was the conversation at the top of this post. Embellishment aside (I was speaking with my friend Dan, a local mushroom hunter) he sent me pictures of a Gomphoid mushroom, but it was mid-July, not August, which was strange.

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus, a rare pig ear mushroom or gomphus clavatus growing with oak
Pseudocraterellus ee the purple starting in the center?
Just emerging Pseudocraterellus.
Just emerging Pseudocraterellus.

I also knew where he was hunting: a forest filled with white oak, elm, and basswood, which is definitely not pine forest.

David Arora had the answer, but only in a brief snippet, and described by someone else: Pseudocantharellus pseudoclavatus, a near identical cousin of Gomphus clavatus that prefers hardwood forests to pines, and now apparently classified as Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus. Both pig ears are near indistinguishable from each other, from a culinary perspective.

Pseudocraterellus pseudoclavatus, a rare pig ear mushroom or gomphus clavatus growing with oak

Pseudocraterellus. From above they have a beautiful bloom, and almost bi-color purple-ish, tan look.

An Endangered Species From Habitat Loss

No doubt about it, pig ears are rare, and it’s likely our fault. It’s apparently thought exctinct in the British Isles, legally protected in Hungary, and is on a list of endangered mushrooms in 17 European countries. A number of it’s cousins are considered threatened in the American pacific northwest forests too, apparently since they associate with old-growth forests.

I found this article funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture helpful here. Its sad to think that something as special as these mushrooms could fall prey to human destruction due to our need for more and more land.

Say a prayer for our little pig ears, it looks like they’re going to need it, you don’t need to go to a zoo to see things that could be wiped from the planet in our lifetime.

Sauteed Gomphus clavatus or pig ear mushroom with blood sausage

Sauteed in chunks with blood sausage, lemon and shallot.

Cooking

The flavor is great, super meaty and rich, there was a touch of bitterness on the finish of the batch I tried, but nothing that wasn’t subdued by adding a simple ingredient, like parsley or a little roasted salsa for my semi-traditional Gomphus tacos (they’re enjoyed in Michoacan, if I remember).

But, the best part about these, like chanterelles (in my opinion) is their texture, which is a bit like big chanterelles crossed with the crunch of a milk cap.

Pig Ear Mushroom or Gomphus Tacos

With fried tortillas, salsa, onion, and cilantro, and nothing else.

All of my fresh pig ears were almost crunchy, similar to lobster mushrooms or Lactarius, so if nothing else, know they will hold up for you, there will be no soft shrooms here. Since the texture on both of these Gomphoids is so good, in my opinion, slicing them up, unless you’re getting bored with a very large haul, just like with golden chanterelles (unless very large) would be a waste.

Like lobster mushrooms, pig ears lose a minimal amount of water during cooking, and keep a firm, resilient texture on the plate. I really liked cooking large-ish clumps, just like you would cook a whole chanterelle. But, traditional Latin American taco fillings and recipes will chop them up and stew them so they make a juicy filling, which won’t be bad at all, either, you need a pretty big haul of mushrooms to do that though.

Special thanks to my friend Dan Farmer on this post, who graciously offered to take me to meet mr Pseudocraterellus so I could share the beautiful in-situ photos with you. Dan, I still owe you a lamb neck.

Related

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Keith

    August 24, 2019 at 7:33 pm

    I found one, once.

    Reply
    • Sarah Crabtree

      November 6, 2020 at 5:33 pm

      Hello, I went foraging yesterday, Oregon coast..found Chantrel yummy discovered these purple grey ‘cousins’
      From a Oregon FB group Fauna and Flora of Washington and Oregon, they led me to look up PIG EARS! Found you!

      Any word on how to more definitively be sure before I eat them? I have pictures!
      Thx Sarah newbie at foraging!

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        November 9, 2020 at 4:19 pm

        Send pics to my email. [email protected]

        Reply
  2. Dan

    August 24, 2019 at 9:10 pm

    It was fun taking you out to see and photograph them, Alan. The pleasure was all mine.

    Reply
  3. Viola

    January 11, 2020 at 5:28 pm

    I have found these up here in North Western Ontario. One patch in fairly young forest, 40 – 60 years, we are a major lumbering area. The other, strangely, in scrub brush heading into a shallow lake area. However, I’ve never found the right window of young enough or cool enough not to be bug riddled. One day maybe…

    Reply
    • Viola

      August 30, 2020 at 7:39 pm

      We’re having a killer year for the Gomphus Clavatus this year up in Northwestern Ontario. I even got to them before the bugs! The window is so tiny on these. It’s been a stellar mushroom year here once the rains started.

      Reply
      • Liane

        October 3, 2020 at 10:43 am

        I’ve found a good haul up here in Thunder Bay. They seem pretty distinctive – is there anything they can be confused with?

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          October 3, 2020 at 11:42 am

          Not really, I’d struggle to think of a look alike.

          Reply
  4. Ryan W

    October 28, 2020 at 11:00 am

    Just found a bunch in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington last weekend, right around where we were finding a bounty of golden chanterelles – easy to identify due to their very distinctive violet gills.

    I saute’d a bit up this morning ( I found the bug holes mostly at the base of the mushroom, so cut that out and cooked the top parts) and they were decent, but nothing really stood out in terms of flavor.

    However, in my reading I get the sense they are better when smaller and the ones we picked were pretty large.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      October 28, 2020 at 12:30 pm

      Yes, I didn’t think they were as tasty as, say, chanterelles by a long shot. But, they’re easy to identify, and they’re a cool mushroom. Better than slippery jacks!

      Reply
  5. Zach

    September 3, 2021 at 3:53 pm

    I just found these in Colorado for the first time. I’ve searched the web on every new mushroom find this summer and I’ve come across one of your posts. I want to say thank you again for sharing your knowledge!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      September 4, 2021 at 7:33 am

      Welcome. My patches have been silent this year. 🙁

      Reply

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Alan Bergo
I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. You tak I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. 

You take the pure juice of the leaves, mix it with salt, Koji rice, and more chopped fresh ramp leaves, then ferment it for a bit. 

After the fermentation you put it into a dehydrator and cook it at 145-150 F for 30 days. 

The slow heat causes a Maillard/browning reaction over time. 

After 30 days you strain the liquid and bottle it. It’s the closest thing to plant-based fish sauce I’ve had yet. 

The potency of ramps is a pretty darn good approximation of the glutamates in meat. But you could prob make something similar with combinations of other alliums. 

The taste is crazy. I get toasted ramp, followed by mellow notes from the fermentation. Potent and delicate at the same time. 

I’ve been using it to make simple Japanese-style dipping sauces for tempura etc. 

Pics: 
2: Ramp juice 
3: Juicy leaf pulp 
4: Squeezing excess juice from the pulp
5: After 5 days at 145F 
6: After 30 days 
7: Straining through Muslin to finish

#ramps #veganfishsauce #experimentalfood #kojibuildscommunity #fermentation #foraging
Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Pepin used to make for French president Charles de Gaulle. 

You bake eggs in a ramekin with shrimp topped with creamy morel sauce and eat with toast points. 

Makes for a really special brunch or breakfast. Recipe’s on my site, but it’s even better to watch Jacques make it on you tube. 

#jacquespepin #morels #shrimp #morilles #brunchtime
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
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