Big balls of fungi are cropping up across Quebec, to foragers' delight
CBC
Mélanie Greffard and her husband usually head out to a nearby forest or the Eastern Townships to forage for mushrooms. So the pair had quite the surprise when they stumbled upon a Calvatia gigantea — a giant puffball the size of two basketballs in their backyard near downtown Quebec City last week. It weighed in at nearly six kilograms.
"At first, it's almost kind of scary, like, 'What is this thing?'" Greffard said, laughing. "We were really impressed with how big it was."
Giant puffballs are large mushrooms, edible when fresh, that grow on grassy areas, often on lawns or fields. They typically appear in August and September, but puffballs the size of Greffard's are a rare find.
Greffard, who grew up in the countryside, credits her mother with getting her interested in mushroom-picking as a child. She said this discovery was pure luck.
"We're right in the heart of Quebec City … and nature is all around us. It's just right there, in our backyard," she said. "It's just really cool to see that."
Greffard found a puffball at the same spot last year, but it was in its "puffing stage," which is when the fungus begins to change colour inside and starts producing spores and is no longer edible.
So she was happy when she saw that this one was firm inside and "very nice and white," a sign it's still good to eat.
Greffald made two soups with the fungus, dehydrated parts of it and even gave some slices away to friends. But a week later, she still had some in her fridge.
The family finally ate the last pieces on Friday, fried in panko crumbs.
Greffard said she's not too sad it's finally gone, except for the mushroom soup still in her freezer.
"I'm getting a little bit of an overdose of mushrooms now," she said. "Our house smelled like mushrooms for 24 hours, I think, because we had to dry some in the oven."
Robert Rebselj was also able to enjoy the giant fungus this year.
The Quebec City resident, who has been picking mushrooms for about 20 years, is usually the one in his household who finds puffballs. But this year, his girlfriend struck mushroom-gold.
She found a giant puffball in a city park that weighed about 3.5 kilograms. Rebselj said it was the biggest puffball he's ever seen.
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