Do you notice anything odd in this picture?
How about this one? Look closely. Well, I tell you what you don't see. Those aren't stray volleyballs forgotten on the edge of the lawn.
They are puffballs! The crazy, otherworldly, giant mushroom. I know that nature is generally kind of incredible and awe inspiring, but you know how it is, you get used to the area that you live in and are not really impressed by the things you see around you all the time. But then you go somewhere else and are amazed by the most mundane things, only because they are not familiar to you. I always have this with visitors from BC, who get excited to see our common Blue Jays, whereas we get all impressed when we are in BC and see Stellar Jays. Its relative rarity in action.
But I am always, always impressed by puffballs. Even though we see them every year. They just seem so... alien somehow, so unusually large. Here's the Little Dude's hand, to give you an idea of scale. And these were two of the smaller ones. The others are even bigger.
We had dinner guests drive in from Toronto last night, and we had to drag them out in the back yard to see the puffballs. And then we picked one and brought it inside to dissect and wonder at. And even fry up and eat. Our guests humored us and went ahead and had some too. They are quite edible. But as with any mushroom or fungus, do be cautious and look at a good guide to make sure you have an actual puffball. Though they really are the most distinctive mushroom, and I'm not worried at all about eating them because they could hardly be confused with anything else. There is really only one, giant, globular, white, un-gilled and unstemmed mushroom and that is the puffball. But really, go look here if you are concerned. The Little Dude really likes to go and visit these, if for no other reason than that he is allowed to smack them like they are drums. They make a very pleasing thump. They are nature's nerf ball. There are so many of them that we're definitely going to let at least one go to spore and then go and throw it onto the road just to see it go "PUFF!" just like we did when we were kids.
We ate a couple of slices of one today too, fried it up and then folded the whole giant slice into an omelet with some cheese. It was quite good. They aren't overly flavourful; mostly they just taste like what you cook them in (butter!) and the texture of the omelet and the mushroom was oddly similar. But still, I always like to eat something I've had no hand in growing and foraged for myself. Makes me feel like a pioneer. But without all the hardship and never ending manual labour. So in a good way.
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