Description: These mushrooms light up the forest with their brilliant orange-red caps and pale sulfur-yellow pore surfaces. Some specimens fade to a peach or salmon color.
The sulfur shelf always grows on wood, usually in large masses of overlapping caps. It has no stem; the cap is attached directly to the wood. The pores are tiny.
Other names include chicken mushroom and chicken of the woods. Size: 2 to 12 inches wide.
When and Where: Summer and fall; in clusters on living trees or dead wood.
Cautions: This is a distinctive mushroom with no poisonous look-alikes. It does cause a mild allergic reaction (swollen lips) in some people.
Cooking Hints: Cook only the tender outer edges of the caps; the rest is tough and woody. Slice and simmer in stock for 45 minutes, then serve creamed on toast.
When cooked, this mushroom has the texture and often the taste of chicken.
