FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
SULPHUR SHELF (Polyporus sulphureus) and CHICKEN-OF-THE-WOODS (Laetiporus sulphureus)
Kavasch, Barrie. 1979. Native Harvests. Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York.
are found in dry, open woods, throughout North America, on dead or injured deciduous trees. They grow in large, many-leveled yellow to orange brackets (shelves) with tiny pores on the underside. The cap is yellow to orange, broad, smooth, and fluted, the flesh is white; the pores are a sulphur-yellow. Harvest the tender outer portions in late summer and early fall. This mushroom is one of the finest edible mushrooms. Requiring longer cooking than most, this firm-textured species has the consistency of chicken breast meat when sliced and sauteed or simmered for 30 minutes. Excellent in potages and casseroles.
Most eastern tribes enjoyed only one full meal a day, a combination of breakfast and lunch, which they ate before noon. This was the time for hearty food, a robust rack of game or boiled fish, a crisp salad, baked pumpkin or squash, crunchy hazelnut cakes. The men ate first, usually from wooden or earthenware bowls. Afterward, the women and children ate what was left.
John Bartram visited the Iroquois in 1743 and described a feast he was served: "This repost consisted of three great kettles of Indian corn soup, or thin hominy, with dry'd eels and other fish boiled in it, and one kettle full of young squashes and their flowers boiled in water, and a little meal mixed…last of all was served a great bowl full of Indian dumplings, made of new, soft corn, cut or scraped off the ear, then with the addition of some boiled beans, lapped well up in Indian corn leaves, this is good hearty provision."
