After leaving it alone for 24 hours (following my discovery of fruiting Shaggy Parasols in my maple leaf culture in my back yard here at Shortsinwoods yesterday), I returned today to find that the largest shroom which I had left unpicked yesterday, which was somewhat egg-shaped and less than 4 inches in diameter, had blossomed out to a 7" monster cap. You can see it on the left in the photo.
The photo also shows the progression of the maturing Shaggies, from parasol-shaped caps about 4 inches in diameter, on the far right, to the one in the center which is about 5 inches, to the large 7-incher on the left. As they widen they clearly flatten out.
They also get more delicate. As you can see the one on the left was losing gills even though I was handling it as gently as possible.
Now all four are going into the dehydrator. I'll check again tomorrow and I'm sure I'll find more to replace them.
Yesterday it took less than 12 hours to fully dehydrate my five Shaggies at 125 degrees F. Today I've turned the temp down to 120 degrees and will check them to see how they are doing in about 10 hours. I suspect that may plenty of time to dehydrate these delicate beauties.
(By the way, did you know the Russians consider the Shaggy Parasol the world's most beautiful mushroom? I can certainly see why.)
So, adding these four to my collection of dehydrated Shaggies, that makes 9. And I counted three more coming up in my patch. At least one will be ready tomorrow. But many more will follow, I'm sure.
Have you ever tried Shaggy Parasols? What do you think of them?
