Winner, Winner, Chicken (of the Woods) Dinner!
I’ve been having a lot of luck finding chicken of the woods around my neighborhood this year, and boy is it just as exciting the first time as it is all the times after. Laetiporus is a genus of edible mushrooms found on multiple continents, and with no reasonable toxic look-alikes, it’s an easily identified mushrooms for novice mushroom hunters (as long as you follow a few rules below). There are other types of mushrooms that also form rosettes and shelves, but they lack the striking orange, yellow, and beige colors of CotW.
The only ones that shouldn’t be eaten due to sometimes triggering an allergic reaction in about 10% of the population are chickens growing on conifers (most notably hemlock) and eucalyptus.
Oak is often a favorite host, and it comes out in the hot humid days right before or after a storm. (I found two flushes and heard reports from my husband of many more at his work the day before a big thunderstorm. I’ve also found them right after heavy rains.)
Now that I’ve collected a few of them in varying stages, I can say that anything past a couple hours from the first flush is not great as far as culinary use goes. It becomes dry and stringy, and while still edible, the texture leaves something to be desired–it reminds me very much of poorly cooked chicken. The next day guarantees it being woody, and at that point other than the very outer portions of each shelf, it’s best left to the wildlife.
I prefer to collect it when the shelves haven’t fully flushed, and has a slippery, wet velvet texture. In this way, CotW is delicious sauteed in some butter, garlic, and herbs, with an almost oyster mushroom flavor and texture although my family agreed it was like eating rare and tender roast beef (which we love). While it won’t be the big monsters that people find, it’s taste rating goes way up if you don’t allow it to fully form shelves. However I did, at one point, accidentally mimic lobster bisque with it when trying to figure out what to do with a CotW slightly past peak deliciousness–the stringiness resembled lobster meat so much I had to do a double-take.
In any case, if you find it, grab first, inspect later. Just be careful as this particular polypore is loved by all sorts of critters and could be hiding some stowaways. It also has the habit of swallowing up other things while flushing, so you’ll often find leaves and grass in the middle of its flesh.