They take long to cook well, so we generally use them in venison or beef stews, that take longer on their own.
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Here are the fresh one and old one. I donāt intend to taste them just am curious what they are. They popped up in my vegetable garden on bare soil. There could be some rotted oak roots below in the ground.
Another option is the dusky bolete Porphyrellus porphyrosporus (The site is in Slovak but Google translate does not butcher it too badly - except for the common name 
. - and there are lots of pictures.) I would not taste that one eitherā¦
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Thanks and I think you may be right - I guess I will leave it as some mysterious yucky bolete. I donāt eat any wild mushrooms until I am 200% certain. I have tons of golden oysters in my woods to eat if I bother to pick them up.
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This doesnāt look like bitter bolete. Honestly, I donāt know what it is.
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I donāt think itās that one - the stem isnāt netted and I see some bluish bruising.
Seems like a likely option, especially seeing how dark brown the caps and stems are in Shimitaoās more recent post.
I was also looking at this one: Boletellus chrysenteroides | The Bolete Filter
or one of the Xerocomus / xerocomellus speciesā¦ but I do think Dusky Bolete fits best.
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Boletelli, xerocomi and xerocomelli have yellow/ish tubes that get darker yellow with age and some yellow and or red pigment on the stem, even if it is brown overall. This isnāt them even if the photos were very desaturated.
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Iām traveling this week and my neighbor, who enjoys mushroom foraging, is taking care of my dog Ziggy. On a walk this morning they found this massive Chicken. He said he thinks it is Laetiporus cincinnatus rather than
the more common and more yellow/orange Laetiporus sulphureus. Ziggy is useful for scale.
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One of my earliest memories is of picking field mushrooms with my father when I was very young. I know more about mushrooms than the vast majority of Slavs and can identify far more species than almost all Slavs, apart from experienced mycologists. I have made the first known collections of several species in Great Britain, and DNA testing indicates that I may have found two collections of an undescribed species i.e. a species new to science. Iāve had my photos published in scientific papers. If you search for Leif Goodwin and fungi, you should find my web site.
I have eaten countless species, though not some of the poisonous species that some East Europeans pick. I prefer to leave fungi to propagate and allow wildlife to feed on them, as they are an important part of the ecosystem. Iām not against picking sensibly i.e. leave rare species, donāt pick them all.
We too have problems with excess picking. Many important nature reserves are stripped bare of fungi, with very rare fungi picked and left to rot on the ground. These are East European groups, run by a gang leader.
He might be right, also look at Meripilus giganteus.
If the cap and stem are velvety, then yes thatās it. It does look right. Iāve only seen it once.
See, thatās exactly what I meant by āprior acquaintanceā. 
As for the gangs of commercial pickers, we do have legislation in place for national parks, reserves and their protective ranges and also fines for picking each protected species per fruiting body. While itās been on paper for ages, thereās been much more effort in enforcement in the last 10+ yearās and that has worked wonders here.
The people who enjoy mushrooms for personal consumption and donāt care for balance are still a problem, mainly in combo with droughts, but the greatest threat is our forest management. No bunch of culinarily misguided non-expert non-mycologists who donāt care for the environment (just to avoid confusion with those professional mycologists who are almost militant about their wild mushroom recipes) can make more damage than loggers who leave barren slopes exposed to sun and erosion in place of a fungi-loaded ecosystem (and even remove dead wood). Their mushroom hunting trips and some hiking are often the only reason why they experience and care for forests. Maybe not as much as they could or should, but still. And they do get to learn about fungi, edible, poisonous and protected on the evening news during the seasonā¦
I found a porcini spot a few years ago but havenāt been able to time it right and get there before everything is bug eaten and rotten. Well this yearā¦ I finally did. So stoked.
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This right here. We have make a mushroom powder with birch, aspen, alaskanum, and being honest any edible bolete that is not a king. We call it hamburger helper but in general it makes any beef taste more meaty (no small feat considering it was eat already). It has a good amount of Worcestershire powder which along with the mushroom makes it an umami bomb.
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I guess it depends on what mushrooms are in your area. King boletes and morels are common here, neither has been successfully grown commercially. chanterelles have a very well deserved reputation for texture and flavor. Heck Iām yet to find chicken of the woods at the super market but I find it hard to believe it could be better, the fresh stuff off a tree is amazing. Maitake was the same store bought and foraged. We have some amazing wild oysters with an incredibly strong anise smell that are as good as the many ones I have bought from the store. Field mushrooms (agaricus campestris) are every bit as good and as big as portabella mushrooms. Gypsies and hedgehogs are some of my favorites and Iām yet to find them at the stores.
But there are a bunch of consolation-price mushrooms. When I jump the gun and go too early in the season I may come back with yellow foot boletes, yellow swamp brittlegills, various russulas, and the like. Those are sub super market mushrooms but hey, I was already out there failing to find the better ones.
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Thatās odd, I find chanterelle all over the place especially in a damp summer, and I have always found them rather tasteless and bland. Yes I know they are sought after. Iām not impressed by Laetiporus sulfureus, chicken of the woods. Oysters, Pleurotus ostreatus, are rather chewy and unappetising. A friend once bought some cultivated ones and her family thought they were yuck as did I.
Agaricus campestris are okay, a more delicate flavour than A. bisporus (cultivated mushrooms), A. arvensis and A. augustus are much better and larger. I did once find an Agaricus species with a strong almond smell, and incredible flavour, I did not know the species. Note: I know the genus well so I knew it was not poisonous, in general never eat an unidentified mushroom.
I think you would like velvet shanks, Flammulina velutipes and almost identical relatives. Lactarius deliciosus is very good. Hedgehogs are okay, not much flavour, but a nice texture. Giant puffballs are said to be good. I once found hundreds of them on a golf course!
I have eaten a lot of different species.
It just goes to show how tastes differ.
The rain we got in August is paying dividends. Today was a good day.
Species pictured: Blue chantrelles (the black ones that there are the most of), red capped scaber stalk, admirable bolete, king bolete/porcini, gypsy mushrooms, saffron milk caps, wood ear, scaly hedgehogs.
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Our mushroom season is about to start. Cannot wait!
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Thatās the consolation prize after this weekā¦ Enough moisture to supply wood-eating mushrooms well into spring.