Some Thoughts on Harvesting Chicken of the Woods

Chicken of the Woods is one of the most easily spotted and recognized mushroom of them all. This one you can hunt from the car.

There is a lot of information about this mushroom on the web and in the books, but opinions on edibility, quality and taste are quite diverse. In my opinion it is really excellent edible, provided that it is picked at the right time and prepared correctly. During the growth cycle mushroom very quickly becomes quite woody and basically unpalatable. Therefore picking mature specimens probably results in lot of negative opinions and claims.


To illustrate what I really suggest I detected one budding Chicken of the Woods and followed it in 24 hour intervals. The images I have taken are contained in the gallery that is a part of this post. Considering Mushrooming Window concept,  in my opinion only day three and four are the good time to harvest. Day five would still be acceptable, providing elimination of the part near to the tree trunk. Comparison with images in various mushrooming groups and forums shows that majority of harvested specimens are well beyond this development stage, therefore greatly inferior in quality and taste.


Basically my advice is to harvest only specimens that will bleed clear liquid when cut and provide resistance to the knife somewhat equivalent to firm tofu.  The color is also quite good indicator even before the knife is used. Somewhat faded specimens, regardless of size are not worth picking


The gallery is also illustrating the speed of growth, or how fast the bulk of the mushroom is increasing.


[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="6" gal_title="COTW Progress"]

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