Each spring, I wander into the woods looking for morel mushrooms, searching for the elusive fungus among the dead and decay, often where a fire once scorched the land. The joy of finding that first morel peeking out from the dirt is indeed a special moment. Several types of mushrooms grow in the Tahoe Basin, and the season for mushroom foraging starts in the spring and ends in late fall. It’s weather dependent and the growing season changes from year to year.
Luis Rubio is an expert fungi forager. He also manages the Facebook page for the Tahoe Mushroom Company in South Lake Tahoe, a high-elevation, gourmet mushroom farm, and guides foraging walks. The Tahoe Mushroom Facebook page has amassed a following of over 5,500 mycophiles.
I called Rubio to get some intel. He had just finished collecting pollen and foraging for mushrooms in Truckee. I asked him what he was doing with the pollen he collected. “I throw it into smoothies,” he said. “It doesn’t have much flavor but has 200 micronutrients, polyphenols, and amino acids. It’s just a really easy way to get that little bit of a boost, especially for me when I’m always out in the forest.” Adding pollen to food can also help with allergies, according to Rubio.
Rubio lives in Truckee in the summer and South Lake Tahoe in the winter. He is committed to helping people get outdoors and connect with nature. In the summer months, he works as a camps outreach coordinator, nature guide, and mentor for Gateway Mountain Center in Truckee. The organization’s mission is to transform young people’s lives through outdoor adventures. In the winter, he’s a ski instructor at Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort. Guiding is in his genes.
“I want to create a connection for people with the outdoors. Whether it’s finding flowers or helping someone find their first mushroom so they can create their own connection,” said Rubio, who started foraging 10 years ago while going through some hard times in his life.
“I realized when I was out in nature, I wasn’t in my head. I was enjoying the moment,” said Rubio, who believes spending time outside is good for everyone’s mental health. “I find I stay much healthier mentally, physically, spiritually when I’m in Rubio collects mushrooms and stores away about 20 pounds of dried mushrooms that last him through the winter. “There are 22 edible mushrooms I know of that exist in the Basin,” he said, admitting there are more edibles he hasn’t tried. Rubio blends six different mushroom types, including agaric, morel, porcini, sawgill, puffball, and floccularia mushrooms, to make a dried powder.
The biggest concern for most novice mushroom hunters is figuring out which ones are safe to eat. Fortunately, there is good news for those foraging around Tahoe.
“We don’t have mushrooms in the Tahoe area that will kill you, but there are toxic mushrooms that can make you sick,” he said. “But as far as confusing something edible with a really poisonous, deadly mushroom, that doesn’t happen here. We’re pretty lucky.”
His rule is, if you’re not 100% sure, don’t eat it.
In addition to managing the above-mentioned Facebook page, he also monitors posts to ensure individuals are not offering misinformation or falsely identifying a mushroom.
Rubio does not recommend eating raw mushrooms because they have very thick cell walls that are difficult to break down and our body cannot process if they are not cooked.
“If you don’t cook them well enough, you’re not getting any of the nutrients. The idea is to expose the mushrooms to high heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Cooking helps break down the cell walls so the nutrients become available,” he explained. “If you consume a lot of raw mushrooms, you can make yourself pretty sick. Portobello is actually the worst one of them all, which is the one that’s consumed the most.”
Rubio points out that the Tahoe Mushroom Company and the increased interest in foraging for mushrooms developed during the pandemic. “Mushrooms were one of those things people didn’t know much about,” he said. “Paul Stamets released the documentary The Fantastic Fungi, which opened the doors for people to better understand mushrooms.” The 2019 documentary explores how mushrooms possess an extraordinary potential to nourish people and promote the planet’s wellbeing.
chanterelle. Courtesy photo
When Rubio takes groups out and helps them hunt and identify mushrooms, he equates it to a scavenger hunt. In Tahoe, morel mushroom foraging occurs during spring. There is an unspoken code amongst morel foragers that they never share the location where they are harvesting them. However, Rubio admits he breaks this code regularly.
“In the mushroom world, everybody is very hush-hush about where they find mushrooms,” he said. “People charge a lot of money for classes and foraging outings, which makes foraging really exclusive. Not everybody has the time, let alone the money, to do that. For me, it’s about equality for everyone, and that’s very important to me.” Rubio says he’s had some pushback from friends about sharing the locations of mushrooms.
Rubio believes that being a good steward of the land is imperative. Guiding and teaching is one way he helps people understand what it means to care for the outdoors. Rubio is committed to fostering community and connection to the natural world, and he promotes awareness and reminds us of the importance of keeping the forests healthy and intact.
“Nature provides us with more than just beautiful scenery,” he said. “It’s where we find inner peace. Nature provides us with powerful medicines created by the symbiotic relationship between flora, fauna, and fungi.”
Rubio leads group nature and foraging walks from spring through summer. If you’re interested in joining or organizing a private group, he can be reached at the Tahoe Mushroom Company Facebook page or on Instagram @tio.luigi.
