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It was about 1860 when Italian immigrants to California's North Coast began to realize that the wild boletus mushrooms they called porcinis (because they resembled little pigs) were popping up all over area forests. But it took another century until gathering them became a serious business.
Eric Schramm, who today owns The Mendocino Mushroom Company, was one of the first people to sell local mushrooms to Mendocino restaurants. “I really had to search thirty years ago to find people who wanted my mushrooms”. says Schramm, an ex-forest ranger, who in 1983 discovered the presence of the prized matsutake mushroom in the county. These days things are different. The mushrooms Schramm forages are sought by chefs from around the globe. The demand is so great that Schramm spends a part of his time teaching novice mushroom pickers or “rain-chasers” as they are sometimes known, how to forage. He is careful to avoid romanticizing the pursuit.“People still think of mushroom-picking as taking out a little basket and strolling through the forest. They’ve never put a 70 pound pack of mushrooms on their back on a 70 degree slope with trees and brush and slippery footing and tried to hike three miles out. Its not an easy thing to do.” In the tough economy Eric's formidable foresty skills have become particularly valuable. He has seen a steady increase in the number of folks eager to learn how to earn a good daily wage by gathering the seasonal harvest of chanterelles, black trumpets, matsutakes and those remarkable candy caps so prized for their maple-syrupy flavor.
Schramm clearly loves his work and lights up as he describes the mysterious manifestation of forest mushrooms after it rains. “They generally start out in the open on the edges of the meadow where the rain penetrates first, then they move back to the “drip line” where the water runs off the edges of the trees, and then back to the edge of the tree that’s the host. When a mushroom is growing right at the base, or “kissing” a tree as we call it, you know that area is done.”
Recently, Schramm has begun to revive another part of the local food industry, namely, the picking and selling of huckleberries. “I ship out up to six hundred pounds of huckleberries in a good year now." announces Schramm, generously handing me a bag of the beautiful blue-black fruit. It’s becoming a viable industry again!”
For a chance to savor the taste of wild-foraged Mendocino County huckleberries, you can either order them via Schramm at (707) 964-1646, or plan a trip up to the North Coast for late summer when many area restaurants and B&B’s such as Brewery Gulch Inn will incorporate them into their menus. |
