(Cantharellus tubaeformis)
Yellowfoot; Winter Chanterelle
A smile will surely light up the face of a forager who stumbles across a nice patch of these terrestrial mushrooms. They are delicious. Resembling chanterelles, they are sometimes referred to as winter chanterelles though they are not chanterelles at all. They are a late fall and early winter species that form mycorrhizae with a number of conifers, especially spruce and hemlock in the PNW. They are more likely to be found in lowland forests, but are not restricted to the coast. This is a cosmopolitan species found in northern temperate locations, as well as in the Himalayas and parts of SE Asia. The caps range from about an inch to 2.5 inches. They are shallowly to very deeply dimpled or funneled. The surface is smooth but may be quite wrinkled or bumpy and ruffled at the margins, which are quite inrolled at first. Caps are typically light brown to yellow brown to beige or brownish orange. The fertile surface features vein-like blunt gills that run down the stalk to a greater or lesser degree. Gills are greyish white to beige and quite narrow. They drop white spores. Stipes are 2-5 inches tall, usually grooved, dry, hollow and concolorous with the cap. They average about 1/2 inch across. The context is fairly thin in the caps. There is no distinct odor and the raw taste is smokey or peppery. Fruitings are usually quite abundant, with sporocarps scattered or in clusters or small groups, usually near woody debris. It takes a lot of these to make a meal, often 100 or more, but any recipe suitable for chanterelles works well with these mushrooms. They are wonderfully tasty and a real treat to find in numbers suitable for the table. Moreover they decay slowly and are often worm-free.