Work in Progress: False Chanterelle

False Chanterelle
July 15, 2009

There.
Just in the corner of my eye
as I drive past, a flash of orange.
Driving back, more slowly now,
I spy, nestled amidst the moss
on a steep embankment held
in the grasping roots of a spreading oak
a field of tiny, curl-lipped trumpets.
I return a few days later
on a weekend when no one is likely
to mind or to witness me.
I stop the car under the oak.
The bank is a mycological wonder:
two large, ominous black puffballs,
a cluster of yellow hats fit for gnomes,
a bolete I might have found at Whole Foods,
small white flutes stained sickly pink on top.
Most of all, dozens of pumpkin-colored 'shrooms
that I am sure are chanterelles.
I gather five of the largest, no more
than three inches tall, half that across,
and take them home, despite their lack
of signature apricot perfume.

At my desk, site after site,
many similar-not-identical photos,
gradually convince me that I am correct.
And so I take one hopeful nibble.
For one anticlimactic moment,
I taste nothing. No fruit, just flesh.
Then the mushroom bites me back.
Its strong, peppery flavor sizzles
on my tongue, and so I sprint
for the kitchen sink to rinse it all out.
I never swallowed.

Was my pick a Jack-o-Lantern,
poisonous? No, too small and fails
to glow in the dark at all.
A more thorough search reveals
the dainty false chanterelle,
distinguishable from the red chanterelle
only by a stem lacking gills.
Not truly poisonous, some think it edible
if you can stand the gastric upset.
Later, sheepish and chagrined,
I stop to wonder - does the chanterelle
imitate its less edible cousin?
Perhaps it is the panworthy variety
who's truly false.