A funky fungi weekend

Oliver in his ranger hat at the mushroom program

The Missouri Mycological Society http://missourimycologicalsociety.org  is starting a group in Mid-Missouri which is great, because Fred and I know approximately squat when it comes to any wild mushrooms besides what a morel looks like. This Saturday morning the group offered a program here in Columbia on poisonous mushrooms in Missouri. It was taught by Maxine Stone who wrote Missouri's Wild Mushrooms. The boys and I got to attend the program and got quit a bit out of it.

Destroying Angels are very common, all white mushrooms with a ring around the stalk and cap at the base. They'll kill ya.

Jack-o-Lantern mushrooms glow in the dark when they are in the right stage. Make you terribly sick.

Alcholol inkies are perfectly edible. Only if you drink alchohol 1-3 days before of after ingesting them, major sick stuff happens.

We learned about 10 poisonous mushrooms in all, which I believe will help me have a bit more confidence at least as to the mushrooms to avoid when we start looking for mushrooms this spring.

Rabbit rolled in mustard sauce, page 48

Henry making faces at the camera!

With a new wild ingredient, rabbit, I am raring to go on trying more recipes. There are only two rabbit recipes in the book, each calling for two rabbits.

The first one we tried is rabbit rolled in mustard sauce. It's browned in a cast iron skillet and then baked in a sauce of onion, white wine, garlic, and chicken broth, basically, with dijon mustard and cornstarch added to the sauce at the end. Bernadette (I know I've repeated this 100 times, but just in case you're new to the blog, Bernadette Dryden is the author of the book we are working our way through, Cooking Wild in Missouri) suggested serving this dish with mashed potatoes and greens, so that we did.

Now this is a meal everybody went for. Oliver, our youngest and most . . . uh . . . selective eater, ate the rabbit right up, and Henry dug in to the meal full force. Fred and I both thought this was a dish that trully was not designed on the necessity of hiding the gamey taste of wild meat, but was just a darn fine dish that proudly showcases how tasty rabbit can be.

I would definitely make this dish again as a standard way to serve rabbit and am hoping rabbit becomes a bit more of a mainstay in our freezer.

Rabbit Hunting with the Preacher

I share this story in tribute to the last day of rabbit season. One of my first hunting experiences was with my preacher. Brother John Spurgeon would bring out a whole pack of beagles to my family’s farm, and we would hunt a brushy area where those beagles were sure to sniff out some rabbits and chase them around to us so we could take a shot at them.

I can’t say for sure if these pastoral visits were out of concern for my eternal soul, or if Brother John just found the rabbit hunting out on my family farm to be better than elsewhere, but these hunts with him became a regular occurrence in the winter.

In addition to the dogs, he also always brought me a gun. It was a double-barrel .410. I thought it was a work of art. And it really did the job on running rabbits at close range.
I don’t remember if Brother Spurgeon kept any rabbits for himself, but he always left some with us. My mother would flour and fry and younger, smaller ones, or boil the larger, older ones with canned biscuits for rabbit and dumplings.

Years later, after Brother John went on to his heavenly home, one of his family members contacted me, and said they had something from him that they wanted me to have. I went to his house to get it, and was presented with a pair of ceramic quail. I’d never quail hunted with Brother Spurgeon, his beagles would have scared any bird within miles away. But the details aren’t important, and it was nice to be remembered.

I hope somewhere out there some young boy is enjoying that .410 the way I did.

From the lady's perspective . . .

Rabbit is just a darn fine meat. It's sweet and rich all on its own, and I don't find it gamey like some other wild meats. It's been about 20 years since I ate wild rabbit, but the aromas in the skillet brought me back to the fried version I had as a child immediately.

When I was young we lived for a few years in the county. Across the gravel road was an abandoned farm and we had permission to set box traps on the farm to catch rabbits. Box traps like the ones we used, or tried to use, this week are just boxes with a trigger in the back that causes a door to shut behind the animal. No harm done at all. In fact,  if you've never seen a box trap they are like the one the chihauhua uses to try to catch the lee-zard in the Taco Bell commercials. There's a reference for you!

Anyhow, I remember checking the traps with my dad and sister. I remember catching quail once. We had no idea why they would have entered the box, but there they were never the less. And, I remember catching an opossum once. The back of my dad's traps had wire mesh so you could see in them and the opossum clung to the wire with its opposable thumbs and wouldn't let go. Finally, we shook him out of the box and when he landed at our feet, he played dead. I remember thinking 1. so they really do play dead and 2. that is the silliest thing I've ever seen since we were just eyeball to eyeball with the opossum trying to get him out of the trap a mere moment before. After a few seconds, he must have realized his playing dead trick was too ridiculous, too, because he gave us a quick look, flipped over and scurried off.

That's one great thing about hunting. It helps you get a much better understanding of wildlife and their behaviors.

I also remember Dad pulling a rabbit out of the box trap once and watching him turn around to discretely bop it in the head. The down side of a box trap is that the animal has to meet its demise by your hand. I remember watching Dad and thinking that part of eating was a bit too realistic for me. It still would be very difficult for me to do, although I have been very quick to do the deed when animal is severely injured and in pain.

Hunting with Fred was so much fun this weekend. I realized, after I shot the rabbit, that it was the first time I've ever hunted with him. I've gone with him numerous times to keep him company and get out, but never to do the act of hunting, and I know I've never shot an animal with him. There was something so partner-like in Fred hopefully and excitingly saying, "Get him, Annie!" as the rabbit ran by me. And, both of us pointing our barrels at a rabbit, me with a shotgun in case it gets away from Fred's .22, is a crazy neat experience, too.

Rascally Rabbits

It was crunch time. One weekend left of rabbit season, and three rabbits needed for our Woods to Food project. We went to the family farm, even though my Dad said he hasn’t seen many rabbits. At least it is a large area that hasn’t been hunted out – by people anyway.

Ann and I set out just after lunch. The temperature was 25 degrees, and the wind was gusting at 26 mph. It was cold enough that we let Henry and Oliver sit this one out to stay inside and play with my Mom’s new house cat.

The first order of business was placing the traps. I wanted to keep them in use as many minutes as possible. I put the three around some thorn bushes near a pond, then we set out on foot. We walked to the creek, and then walked the creek to the county road.

At this point Dad met up with us. He had with him two dogs – his hound and Yippy, a stray dog that Dad took in which appears to be half border collie and half something much larger than a border collie. I had suggested using the hound – Dad wasn’t optimistic. Dad had attempted to coon hunt with him (it is a Walker) earlier in the year, but the dog showed no interest and went home. Dad said he doesn’t seem interested in much besides killing cats, and their once abundant barn cat population has gotten suspiciously sparse.

We walked on, and soon we (Dad and I, not the dogs) jumped up a rabbit. After we (again, Dad, Ann and I, not the dogs) chased it about from bush to bush, it finally stopped where I could see it. I was carrying a shotgun to increase my odds on a running rabbit, but I now regretted it, as I had what would be an easy shot with a .22. I aimed very high, hoping the bottom edge of my shotgun pattern would just catch the rabbit in the head and I wouldn’t waste any meat. I over did it, though, shot too high and missed entirely. But after another little chase I had a chance again. This time I aimed a little lower and got it. One down, two to go.

Apparently after the first shot, Yippy just went back to Dad’s Mule (Kawasaki utility vehicle) to wait, and the hound went all the way back home. We were on our own. Dad went home, too, but advised us that cover would be better on the other side of the creek. So we crossed a low-water bridge, and headed back in the direction that we came from. When we arrived back near where the truck was (and there is no bridge), there was too much water in the creek to cross on foot, so we kept hunting the creek bank all the way around the field to our friend’s house, Llans and Danica Taylor. Llans gave us a ride home, and mentioned that he often see’s rabbits in his driveway. He hasn’t had cattle in the area around his house in a year or so, and there’s quite a bit of cover there.

We checked the traps at about dark, and nothing was sprung, so we shifted them to a different location for the night.

The next morning I got out at daylight. It was only 10 degrees, but it was still, so it didn’t feel as cold as the day before. I walked out several fence rows, and the edge areas where fields meet woods, but I didn’t turn up anything.

I was about to call it day, but Ann encouraged me to give Llans and Danica’s place a try. We went over there together, and walked about forty yards before we got up our first rabbit. Again, it took a little chasing around, but after a bit Ann got it on the run with her Browning 20 gauge. This was only the second time Ann has ever shot something, and she was pretty excited about it. After a short walk further, we got up a second one. This time I had my .22, and I was able to get it.

Success! We met our quota of four rabbits. I think we could have gotten a few more at the Taylor’s, but we had a lot of other things to do that day, and needed to be on our way.

I can hardly wait to experience the end result of this hunt. Rabbit dinner, here I come.

Trapped by a Deadline

Ann’s parents were up to attend a school program and watch the kids on a day off school, and we happened to mention that the close of rabbit season was one week away, and we were three rabbits shy.

Right after I went to work, Ann’s Dad sprang into action, converting a few old scrap shelves that had been cluttering my garage for a year into rabbit traps, per instructions on the MDC website. I was giving word of this construction, which was to be my birthday gift, halfway through the day. My first question was, “When is trapping season?”

A quick consultation of the MDC website showed me that rabbit trapping season ended January 31, so no dice on the traps. But then I read on. Elsewhere it said that rabbits and squirrels could be trapped anytime during their hunting season, the traps were to be considered a hunting method.

So did I need to purchase a trapping permit? Apparently not, because I wasn’t trapping, I was just hunting with traps.

Armed with this knowledge, and some apples for bait, we immediately put the traps into action. Gerard had built them well, they seemed to trigger perfectly. I checked with the city of Columbia to see if I could place the traps in a city park (the one in my neighborhood), but they said no. So we went to the next closest public ground that does allow trapping and hunting, the conservation area around Ann’s office off of old 63.

Behind the buildings there is a field of tall grass, surrounded by briars and woods. It looked like a good place to find a rabbit. We placed the three traps and hoped for the best.

The next day we checked the traps, but they were unsprung and still baited. Henry and Oliver adjusted the placement a little, and we tried again. But again, the next day they were still unsprung and fully baited. So we gathered them up and prepared to head to my family’s farm, to make one last hunting/trapping stand against our first real Woods-To-Food deadline.

Persimmon-gingerbread trifle, pages 168-169



Here's another kind of recipe I've never made-trifle. Trifle looks pretty, and I like the name (though I sometimes get it and tripe confused). But, then there's the three layer thing. That pretty much seems like three different recipes to make for one dessert. Plus, most trifle recipes make a big batch with layers of dry on top of soggy that doesn't sound like it would age well for the inevitable leftovers.   And, suddenly trifle doesn't seem worth it.

My cousin asked us over for the superbowl last weekend. This would be a great excuse to bring the persimmon gingerbread trifle. There's a lot of people so soggy leftovers shouldn't be a problem, it's a pretty big dessert which is good for a party, and making a triple recipe dessert doesn't sound as bad for a group as it does for just Fred and I (I already knew this was not a dessert the boys would care for).

I went ahead and got in the ingredients for the recipe, borrowed a trifle dish from a neighbor, then Fred called Laurie to tell her we were bringing it but before he could she said I didn't need to bring dessert because she was making  . . . trifle! Man, what are the chances of two trifles at one superbowl party? Pretty slim, I'd say.

So, I nixed the trifle recipe for that night but needed to make it soon since I had all the dairy ingredients in for it. Later in the week when I found out a work meeting was going to be a take-a-dish, so I took that opportunity to finally make the trifle.

The bottom layer is home made gingerbread, the middle layer is a persimmon mouse with gelatin, spices, buttermilk and whipped cream,  and the top layer is chantilly cream.

Hello? I'm tapping on the glass of your computer screen right now. Hello? Can you hear me? Please take note of what I'm about to say . . .

THIS HERE RECIPE IS TOTALLY AWESOME.

Did you get the message? I hope so. This is no soggy, mild puddle of a trifle. This is moist full flavored gingerbread with a sweet, aromatic persimmon mouse under billows of chantilly cream. I am fully ready to make this recipe next fall and the falls to come when persimmons are ripe and enjoy the bounty our Missouri woods have to offer. Yum, yum, yum.

Thank you, Bernadette (author of Cooking Wild in Missouri) for introducing this trifle into our lives.