A St. Albert chef will be serving up fabulous fungal fruits this August as Alberta’s annual mushroom exposition sprouts up at a new location.
About a thousand people are expected to head to the Devon Community Centre on Aug. 4 for the Alberta Mycological Society’s Wild Mushroom Expo. The annual event gives Alberta mycophiles a celebrate fungi in all its many forms.
The society decided to hold this year’s expo in Devon instead of at its usual spot at the University of Alberta Botanic Garden's pavillion after garden staff forgot to reserve the pavilion for them, said society treasurer and expo lead Melanie Fjoser. The society was otherwise pleased with the expo's new home as it was bigger, air-conditioned, and equipped with a full kitchen.
“We aren’t going to have to fight with the squirrels!” added society secretary Martin Osis, who explained that squirrels had stolen many mushrooms (which are the fruiting bodies of fungi) from past expo displays.
Fjoser said this year’s expo will feature the usual array of fresh-picked mushrooms from across Alberta, including displays of edible, poisonous, and medicinal ones. Devon Mayor Jeff Craddock will bring greetings on behalf of the town, and St. Albert chef Zach Eaton will serve up gourmet mushroom meals throughout the day. Mushroom expert Robert Rogers will speak on human clinical trials of medicinal mushrooms, while Osis will discuss urban mushrooms.
Too hot for shrooms?
Mushrooms are important decomposers of dead material and provide vital nutrients to plants, Osis said.
“Without mushrooms, we wouldn’t exist.”
While heavy rains earlier this year brought a mountain of morels to Alberta, the province’s recent heat wave have made for slim pickings outdoors in recent weeks, Osis said.
“With the hot weather, the mushrooms just don’t come out,” he said, as their spores will wither in the heat.
Osis was nonetheless confident that society members would find mushrooms to show off at this year’s expo, especially if it rained anywhere in the province beforehand.
Alberta had plenty of red tops and other mushrooms popping up prior to last year’s expo, but was pretty barren this year due to the heat, said St. Albert resident Eric Whitehead, who runs the mushroom company Untamed Feast. Mushrooms also appear to be cyclical, so last year’s boom could make for a bust this year.
“That’s the beauty and mystery of mushrooms,” he said.
St. Albert city councillor and mushroom fan Natalie Joly said she hasn’t found much beyond a few boletes outdoors in recent weeks, but scrounged up about 800 morels earlier this year.
“The morel season was absolutely exceptional,” she said.
Joly and Whitehead said anyone looking to find wild mushrooms should join the Alberta Mycological Society to learn how to identify and harvest mushrooms. Assuming it ever rains, St. Albert residents should be able to find red caps, white corals, and fly agarics (red cap with white spots) sprouting in area forests in the next few weeks.
“Put on your walking shoes and go walking,” Joly advised, when asked how to find mushrooms.
The expo runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Devon Community Centre (20 Haven Ave., Devon) on Aug. 4. Edmonton Transit Service is offering paid bus service to the expo that day from the Century Park Transit Centre. Admission to the expo is $10, with kids under 10 getting in for free. Visit www.albertamushrooms.ca/event/wild-mushroom-expo for details.
