Yachats will fill with mushrooms and people who love them for three days starting Friday, Oct. 18.
Sponsored by the Yachats Chamber of Commerce, the Yachats Mushroom Festival is celebrating its 20th year as it attracts hundreds of visitors and local residents to learn everything from how to hunt, to identify, to cook or grow your own mushrooms.
It has grown to six educational forums featuring well-known mushroom experts from throughout Oregon, displays, hands-on workshops and demonstrations, and guided walks that sold out weeks in advance.
Yachats restaurants kick off the weekend Friday night by offering a special array of mushroom-featured dinners. The Yachats Farmers Market will be open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, featuring many mushroom-oriented vendors.
“The weekend brings an impressive array of fun and serious learning opportunities under the umbrella, “Ecology for Everyone,” a title coined by one of the festival’s founders,” said festival coordinator Bev Wilson.
The event has become so popular that all 264 spaces in the festival’s 23 guided mushroom walks have been reserved. Although cancellations are rare, people may email festival organizers at info@yachats.org to request their name be placed on a waiting list.
The event is usually centered at the Yachats Commons. But because a Eugene church has rented the space for 11 days starting Thursday, Oct. 10, the mushroom festival events are this year split between Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, the Yachats Lions Club hall, and the Little Log Church and Museum.
People need to purchase of a $5 festival wristband to attend a speakers’ forum, workshops, and demonstrations. Wristbands may be purchased on site during the festival weekend and one week in advance at the Yachats Visitors Center.
The forums will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 at the Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, 360 W. Seventh St., and 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Little Log Church & Museum, 328 W. Third St.
The speakers’ forum includes presentations by well-known mycologists Dan Luoma, Steven Carpenter, David Pilz, Matt Trappe, and Charles LeFevre.
The mushroom display will be at the Yachats Lions hall, provided and staffed by members of the Lincoln County Mycological Society, the Cascade Mycological Society, and the North American Truffling Society, as well as by experts who assist in identification.
One of the people giving a cooking demonstration and then helping in the display area is Pam McElroy of Newport, past president of the Lincoln County Mycological Society. She says the displays and 10-minute seminars from various experts from her’s and other groups are very popular.
“We all learn so much from each other,” said McElroy, who started picking mushrooms with her parents and has kept going for 60 years. “Every time I go out I learn something new – and there’s a lot to learn.
“It’s a fabulous hobby,” she said, and a great way for mushroom advocates and educators to help with the burgeoning interest in the subject. “The way the connections between all the groups have grown have helped make it a much better festival.”
Wilson said the idea of a mushroom festival was pitched to the Yachats chamber 20 years ago by then-board member and chef John Ullman after he returned from a trip to Italy, where he had been enthralled by a country festival there.
“The Yachats chamber board enthusiastically agreed that such a festival had natural culinary and educational potential here,” Wilson said.
Wilson said forest ecologist Marla Gillham joined the planning committee, bringing scientific knowledge, environmental passion, the love of teaching – and “a phenomenal team of educators.”
“We are honored that most of this original team has continued to participate annually and make the festival’s ‘Ecology for Everyone’ programs possible,” she said.
Speakers’ forum and workshops
Saturday, Oct. 19
Yachats Community Presbyterian Church
10 a.m., Matsutake Mushrooms and Other Forest Delights: Dan Luoma of Oregon State University will talk on the general ecology of forest mushrooms, including matsutake and include information from research on wild mushroom harvests.
11:15 a.m. How to Collect and Identify Wild Mushrooms: Steven Carpenter of Pacific Analytical Laboratory, Philomath, will how to identify mushrooms for safe consumption, how to collect them in a way that does not harm their environment, and where to find them.
12:30 p.m. Ecosystems in Flight: Steven Carpenter of Pacific Analytical Laboratory, Philomath, will focus on how fungi, mushrooms and fungus-eating beetles modulate decomposition in forests.
1:45 p.m.: How Forest Changes Affect Edible Mushroom Production: David Pilz, a former Oregon State University and federal mushroom researcher, will talk about how forests are constantly changing and how that can influence fungi, including a discussion on the effects of global warming.
3 p.m. The Inner Beauty of Mold: Matt Trappe of OSU’s botany department will talk about molds, what they are doing in your compost, your refrigerator, your medicine cabinet, and that closet wall.
Sunday, Oct. 20
Little Log Church
12:15 p.m. Oregon Is Truffle Country: Charles LeFevre of New World Truffieres and the Oregon Truffle Festival will talk about Oregon’s native culinary truffles, the successful cultivation of French truffles throughout the world, and Oregon’s central role in the emerging American truffle industry.
1:30 p.m. Truffle Dog Demonstration: Following his speaker’s forum talk, LeFevre will offer a half-hour truffle dog demonstration beginning about 1:30 p.m. by the picnic area at the east end of the Cape Perpetua Campground. Do not bring dogs to this demonstration.
Workshops and demonstrations
Saturday, Oct. 19
Yachats Community Presbyterian Church
11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.: Cooking with Mushrooms, Making the Most of Your Bounty: Pam McElroy and Anna Russo of the Lincoln County Mycological Society will focus on cooking with mushrooms, information on individual wild mushrooms, the culinary companions to bring out the best in each species and preservation. Please arrive 15 minutes early; $3 materials fee collected at door.
3- 5 p.m. : Grow Your Own Gourmet Mushrooms: Steven Carpenter and Kim Kittredge will give a lecture and slide show at 3 p.m. and then move to a 4 p.m. workshop and the picnic shelter behind the Yachats Commons to show how to grow your own oyster mushrooms. The 4 p.m. workshop is open only to those also attending the 3 p.m. lecture/slideshow. Please arrive 15 minutes early; $5 materials fee collected at door
Sunday, Oct. 20
Little Log Church & Museum
11 a.m. How to Grow Shiitake on Logs – all the wrong ways: Kim Kittredge will show how to cultivate shiitake outdoors and grow your own protein source.