I like cooking and always wanted to go mushroom foraging, but I don't know where/how to start?

any idea? Thanks a lot!

I got into mushrooming several years ago. I'm no expert, but here's some advice.

If you want to hike with other mushroomers that can help you ID fungus as you find it, then consider joining up with these guys:

http://www.vanmyco.com/

If you want to try and do it by yourself, then basically, what you need is a couple of very good guidebooks. "All That The Rain Promises And More" by David Arora is a nice one to start with. So is "Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest" by Ammirati and Trudell.

Then, you just go hiking. Ideally into forests with no trails rather than along a popular trail.

Find some mushrooms. Use the book(s) to ID them. If they aren't in the books, they probably aren't edible.

If you can get a positive ID of an edible mushroom that you're interested in, and you are entirely confident tha tyou haven't made a mistake, then try eating it, following cooking directions from the book. Don't eat raw mushrooms.

Thanks Dru, your input are great help for me! I am also thinking to join Sunshine mushroom Society (www.scshroom.org) , will be back there with the updates if we go mushroom hunting this Sept and Oct.

I am also thinking to get the following two books as well:

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The Sept guide is a good one. I don't have the New Savory Wild Mushroom one but I have heard it is good as well.

When it comes to edibility, always trust the latest published info the most. There are a couple of mushrooms that older books like the Arora guide (pub. early 1990s) suggest are edible, but which new information suggests should not be eaten, such as angel wings, Pleurocybella porrigens.

See here for more infohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurocybella_porrigens

For a complete novice I would recommend to start ‘hunting’ with someone experienced or to join mushroom club outings. Individual mushrooms of the same species can look very different depending on where they grow and at what stage of development they are, which can be rather confusing. Books rarely show this variety. And books don't include every possible species.

Not mentioned yet, many clubs have a show each fall, with lots of mushrooms on display and experts present to chat with (and to bring your own collection along for ID). The show of the Vancouver Mycological Society is on October 25 (http://www.vanmyco.com/).

I also like this website http://www.mykoweb.com/ but its a bit cumbersome to click through all the links unless the choices are already narrowed down (and its California mushrooms).

Thank you so much for your input! good suggestions!

David Arora's "All The Rain Promises" is a good field guide, but his large "Mushrooms Demystified" from which the info in the former was drawn is mush more comprehensive (haha).

After several years of amateur enthusiasm for fall mushrooming, I can give you a couple salient points that may help:

-Picking mushrooms does not necessarily negatively affect the organism (which could be made up of miles of unseen mycelium. the root-like part that makes up most of the organism). The mushroom "fruit" is the mechanism whereupon it spreads it's reproductive spores. Picking and handling a mushroom may actually help disperse those spores to new environments. Picking ALL the mushrooms in a local environment would have the opposite effect (more on this below).
-In BC, there may be up to 30K species of mushrooms, with perhaps only a quarter of those scientifically described, and the vast majority of these easily falling into the LBM category (Little Brown Mushroom. Yes, this is a real thing). Most of these LBMs can only be reliably differentiated under a microscope by their spores.
-Of the minority of recognizable described species, perhaps 8 (from memory) are deadly and NEED to be memorized (as well as their look-alikes), several are not deadly poisonous but perhaps would cause varying levels of GI distress if eaten(up to severe, perhaps with certain food/drink combinations such as alcohol), a dozen or so are choice delicacies and should be noted, and a few dozen are not known for being edible but are interesting for other reasons (depending on what you think is interesting in a mushroom).
-There are no tricks that will help you identify if a mushroom is poisonous (such as "A poisonous mushroom will tarnish a silver coin", or "It's only poisonous if it has spots."). Old wives tales should be suspect.
-BC Parks does not allow mushroom gathering. I used to wonder why, then one day when I was walking to Cheakamus Lake I met an "expert" hosting a group mushroom forage. They picked every mushroom they could find, whether or not they had 30 of them already, whether or not they were of interest or not. Most were discarded in a pile at the TH. Not only does this affect the reproductive cycle, but seriously affects the enjoyment of other park users (insert "off-leash dogs on trails in Parks" analogy here). Rangers DO enforce this.
-Mushroom Festivals are a great way to meet real experts and fellow enthusiasts. http://www.whistlernaturalists.ca/?page_id=20

All wild mushrooms can be eaten.
Some more than once.

There are a few species that are common, edible, relatively easy to identify, no poisonous look-alikes and delicious. Stick to the simple until you've learnt more.

I have the original Savoury Mushroom and wasn't too impressed by it, maybe the new one has more details....

Great subject, picked Pine Mushrooms with a friend. Did stop by and checked out the Mushroom Collection Stations up the Nahlaltch a few years ago.

Karl

Thanks everyone for your input! really appreciate it! a lots to learn about mushrooms here. A little bit off the topic, I saw a local Lingzhi mushroom on sale @ T & T today which is ~$70 per lb, I thought this kind of mushroom was only in Asia, anyone knows that mushroom here?

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They usually don't grow in BC but there are mushroom farms which grow them: http://www.yusfarm.ca/Company/index.htm
http://www.apforganic.com/
Lingzhi more commonly known as Reishi has medicinal properties so no wonder they are very expensive.