Plain old field mushrooms used to grow in our back field in Ohio. You could get a whole basket full at a time. My mother and I would fry them in butter. Very good. You had to pick them just right, or they would get wormy. I've tried puffballs, but they aren't as good. Field mushrooms don't grow here in Georgia. I've never eaten any of the wild ones here because you can't ever find enough to bother with, even if you knew which ones weren't poison.
My experience is similar to Nancy's, I used to pick field mushrooms with my father and we would have a fried mushroom feast. I wouldn't trust myself these days, I would make myself sick just thinking about the possibility of picking and eating the wrong mushrooms.
The cool thing is when they come up in rings in the yard after a rain. I think they call them fairy rings. (I'm sure Richard Feynman could explain why. )
Grandma and Mushroom Soup "My grandma didn't want to live with us in Bangkok. She told my mom she wouldn't be comfortable in the city. She wanted to be in her own environment, somewhere close to nature. Her decision to live alone was very telling of her independence and strength. "On my last visit, we did Baci. Baci or บายศรี is an old tradition usually done by a senior person to wish the younger ones an auspicious life. The tradition is done through an act of tying a white string on one's wrist. "As my grandma gently knotted those strings around my right wrist, I noticed her rough and wrinkled hands. The hands that raised and fed four children on her own. Mom always told us that grandma was a strong woman. I have no doubt. My mom is the living proof of her strength...like mother, like daughter they say. "That early afternoon after Baci, we walked around her land and picked up wild mushrooms for lunch. Foraging was my grandmother's way of life. She lived sustainably. By that, I mean she lived within her means, in a minimalistic way that sustained her being. "In her kitchen, there was no oven or fancy equipment, just pots and pans and a charcoal grill. I still remember the image of her small, ageing body moving around the kitchen as she cooked the mushroom soup for us. "That was the last meal I ate with her." หลับให้สบายนะยาย.
That button one is a cute little thing. This is one I found in the woods all by itself. I doubt it's edible.
I found these in our yard a while back...they were different from the ones that usually come up and much more colorful.
Mushrooms usually pop up right after rainy weather, and moreso in spring and fall when it is not really hot or really cold. Because you don’t often get many rainy days, and you have a hot climate, it would be unlikely that you would get mushrooms, Chrissy. Even though we have lots of rainy weather here in Alabama, I don’t remember seeing mushrooms here in our yard either. When I lived in Idaho, we had mushrooms, and I used to pick them and we fried them and ate them or put them on a pizza. The ones that I picked were large, and looked almost like a pancake on top, and were from 4-6 inches across the top. Underneath, instead of gills, they had little holes and looked like a sponge. Like most mushrooms, you had to pick them fresh, right after the rain, otherwise they got worms in them and you could not eat them. We always soaked the mushrooms in a salt water solution after we cleaned and washed them, just to make sure that there weren’t any worms already climbing up inside the stem. There were morels around, too; but because they were such a prized mushroom, people that know where to find the morels kept it as a secret. Occasionally, I found some; but mostly I just picked the sponge mushrooms. Sponge mushrooms. The light colored one looks fresh, the darker one might not be as good.
I get mushrooms in my backyard sometimes, particularly when it rains a lot. I've no idea what kind they are, though. Some of them are probably edible because I've noticed that the squirrels (or something) are eating them.