ODU, Botanical Garden Sponsoring Mushroom 'Find and Dine' Workshop
September 11, 2012
A sauté of wild mushrooms can be delicious, but most folks aren't brave enough to forage for fungi because they doubt their ability to identify the ones that are good - and safe - to eat.
Just in time for this fall's foraging season, the Norfolk Botanical Garden (NBG) and Old Dominion University are joining forces to help remedy this standoff. On Saturday, Sept. 22, at NBG, Alan Muskat, who is known as "The Mushroom Man," will lead "Mushroom Workshop: Find and Dine." The workshop will include instruction on how to identify and find desirable mushrooms, and also how to cook them.
Muskat, who is based in Asheville, N.C., and has appeared frequently on travel and cooking shows on television, is the author of the book "Wild Mushrooms: A Taste of Enchantment." But he often advises newcomers to mushroom foraging to learn from a "human" field guide, not a book.
He will provide this human guidance at the workshop, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will include a mushroom hunt, a cooking demonstration and a tasting. The cost is $66 for NBG members and $76 for others. For more information, visit www.norfolkbotanicalgarden.org.