A Family That Forages Together: The matriarch mycologist

Amidst the golden rays of forest light filtering through the leaves and ferns, where the Earth smells damp and sweet, a little boy giggles. Before you see him, you hear the excited patter of little boots – like the world’s tiniest stampede. The little boy – mom affectionately calls him Frog – is running and giggling because, in the tiniest of little hands, he holds a prize. His fingers are a miniature cage protecting the delicate magic underneath; a single, tiny, golden mushroom. He hands it to Mom and runs off, squealing in delight, to find his next treasure. This cycle repeats as Mom and Frog wander through the woods, a tradition passed down through generations in their family. Marina Kviker, a Rhode Island transplant, grew up watching her parents and grandparents forage for mushrooms in their native country of Ukraine. She liked hiking, but never adopted the interest in foraging until she was in vet-school.

One day, a close friend of hers began “shoving giant chunks of Chicken of the Woods mushroom” into her bag on a hike, which ignited the tradition that had been passed down to her by generations. “I remember [soon after moving to Rhode Island] finding my very first Chicken of the Woods mushroom and saying, ‘Oh, Hey! That’s the mushroom Clint taught me about!’ From there I was immediately hooked… A switch had flipped, and I NEEDED to know mushrooms.” Kviker looked up local mushroom foraging companies and found The New England Mushroom Hunting Foundation (MHF), founded by Ryan and Emily (Schmidt) Bouchard. Ryan and Emily created MHF as a nonprofit organization that teaches the best methods for foraging, based on the science of mycology. Ryan teaches a course called Start Learning Gourmet Wild Mushrooms, while his wife Emily hosts a video series about wild plants called “In the Weeds with Emily Schmidt.” The couple have taught thousands of students how to safely enjoy America’s incredible wild mushrooms and edible plants. “Everything I know about mushrooms, I owe to them,” says Kviker. “They took me on my first mushroom expedition at the height of COVID. We all masked up and kept 6 feet apart while learning about fall mushrooms.”

Even in the isolation of COVID, you were never alone if you had mushrooms. When you first start looking for mushrooms, you will soon realize how incredibly abundant they are. Mushrooms love dead things, and the woods are full of them. Sorry for the nightmare fuel, but their ideal habitat is the opposite of my ideal date: shady, moist, and dead. Downed logs, trees, and leaf litter are all great breeding grounds, especially after a good rainfall. Kviker definitely has her ideal spots. Specific mushrooms like to grow on specific types of trees. Kviker has a few tasty mushrooms she looks for like black trumpets, morels, and hedgehogs. When local mushroom groups start posting about mushrooms popping up (Mushroom season occurs from June to as late in the year as Winter with some species) that’s when Kviker loads up her “mushroom knife,” (the Opinel brand being her favorite) a brush for brushing dirt off the mushrooms, a breathable basket, and hits her favorite spots. “I’ll check my known spots, and will continue to do so through the end of the season. When scoping out new spots, the spots I choose to come back and check will highly depend on the trees in that area.” She adds jokingly, “And more than anything the amount of cars in the parking lot!” With years of experience under her belt now, Kviker has become a trusted source for mushroom identification groups whose purpose is to identify mushrooms and fungi in cases of toxicity. Many edible mushrooms can have toxic or inedible look-alikes. When asked what she looks for to determine if a mushroom is edible, inedible, or toxic, Kviker said that the answer is not straightforward. “The short answer is – a combination of previous knowledge and being able to ID the key features… What does the cap look like? Does it have gills, pores, or teeth? Is there any bruising? Any particular odor? What is the color of the spore print? What trees is it growing around/ associated with?” If this seems complicated, it’s because it is at first. No mushrooms should ever be eaten unless you know exactly what they are by knowledge from a trained mycologist, a foraging guide, and in some cases expert advice from Facebook groups such as Fungus Identification or Mushroom Identification.

In RI, there are several groups that share love for mycology. The Rhode Island Mycological Society was founded in 2022 by Deana Thomas, along with some of the most knowledgeable mushroom folks in RI including Chef Spike (one of the world’s experts on Amanita Mushrooms). This group has various committees centered around research and event planning, and Fungi Fests where people can celebrate all things shroom. One committee is focused on creating Forays or large meetups where the group will collect specimens to document what grows in a particular area. For new foragers, Kviker recommends joining local mushroom ID groups to start learning what types of fungus are out there. If there is a local Mycological society or group offering forays, join those to work with groups who can help teach you to identify. “If you’re in New England, I cannot recommend the New England Mushroom Foundation highly enough. They are incredible, so giving with their knowledge, and some of the best people I’ve ever met.” The Alltrails and ASRI/Audobon apps can also help you figure out where you can hike, and where you are allowed to forage. Do not forage on any ASRI/Audobon property in RI. INaturalist is also a great starter app to help identify, but should not be used to rule out inedible or toxic mushrooms. Most importantly, spend time in the woods learning what grows at what time of year. “It is a process, and often a long one.” As for Kviker, it’s clear that her family’s passion for foraging did not skip her generation. Having witnessed how happy her Frog is, hopping from mushroom to mushroom, it does not seem to have hopped over his either. So if one day you see a Frog on the trail with his Mom, Dad, and his two best pups, you can be sure, he is a mycologist in the making, and probably a pretty…. Fun guy. •

Photo: By Kirsten Logan