📌 Welcome to the Wiki!
Here are some in-depth articles on various things. Well, not yet. For now there's only one.
Velvet Shanks (Flammulina velutipes)
Originally posted 26th October 2022Identification
Yesterday, on a mushroom spotting trip with a friend, they showed me a log that they'd seen the day before. Quite a few mushrooms grew from it, of two species - one, pale-pink and wrinkled shelves, and the other golden-orange caps atop a dark stalk.
They were velvet shanks, although how I knew that immediately I don't know, because I don't think I've ever found them before. I think I must've just spotted them when going through my little pocket guide earlier. I pulled that book out again and had a look, and yes, they were indeed velvet shanks. So after taking some photos, I picked just four to take home and try, because the pocket guide suggested edibility. And they're tasty! I, as always, spent far too long looking at the deadly poisonous lookalike, in this case the Funeral Bell, which couldn't really have a scarier name, could it? But it definitely wasn't that, because the shanks have these telltale stalks that 1. don't have the skirts that funeral bells do, and 2. are dark brown, nearly black, fading to orange at the top. (do be cautious though, because when younger, velvet shanks can have all-orange stalks. Familarise yourself with the characteristics of both Funeral Bells and the Shanks before trying!)
Preparation for cooking and eating
I was able to find very little information about preparing velvet shanks for cooking and eating online, so hopefully this can make up for that.
They fry up lovely in some oil and salt. Smell meaty and taste nutty. Do make sure to remove the stalks which are apparently too tough to eat (I didn't try them), and to remove the slimy film on top of the mushrooms. I found the best way to prepare them was to dry them out between pieces of kitchen towels so that the slime is wiped away. This makes removing the film easier, because otherwise it's so thin, and so slick, that it's difficult to get a purchase on. My ultimate tip, if this makes any sense, is not to peel the film off the mushroom, but to peel the mushroom away from the film. Split the cap in half so that you get a cross section, and get a grip on the film and the cap underneath. Then gently pull the cap away from the film, slowly so as not to snap the film. When I did have the film split, I found a small pair of tweezers were able to get purchase, as long as the slime had been properly wiped away.
As with any mushroom, try a small amount first, to test if you may have a reaction!
General info
Velvet Shanks are also Enoki mushrooms! I've no clue how, but they look completely different in their cultivated form, which is Enoki. Very strange!