Caviar? Just fish eggs. A bottle of Chateau Le Pin? Just vinegar in a few years.
A 25-pound Chicken in the Woods? Gold.
Alberto Anton of Berwyn stormed into the Suburban Life offices in Downers Grove like a Forty Niner who had just hit the motherload today.
Nestled carefully in a wicker basket was a 25-pound mushroom commonly known as the Chicken of the Woods, Sulfur Shelf, or Chicken mushroom, that Anton found in the woods near Harlem Avenue and 45th Street.
He added the mushroom also has a nickname, the “Bohemian.”
“You don’t find them this big all the time,” Anton said. Every year, I go out to look for the giant.”
This is mushroom season, the seasoned mushroom hunter said. Picking is best between September and December, after the temperature drops to the 50s and it rains. It’s an annual ritual for Anton.
To prepare the shroom, he boils it in salted water for three minutes and it’s then ready to prepare to taste. Frozen, the mushroom will keep for months, he said.
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