2000 was a great year for giant puffballs, mostly Calvatia gigantea. It's fun to find them in the woods or in a meadow. If you find them when they're young, they're delicious. I usually prepare them by cutting only young, white, firm specimens into 3/4 inch thick slices, then into strips about an inch wide. Then I dip them in raw scrambled egg mixed with a little water, afterwards rolling them in bread crumbs (seasoned or not) or in crushed KeeblerTM Club crackers. Then I sauté them on both sides in olive oil plus a little butter until golden brown. They're yummy! However, like tomatoes, they don't all taste the same-- some are much better and more flavorful than others. If you've tasted them in the past and didn't like them, try again! The crispy outside with the texture of marshmallows on the inside is a real treat.
Even though they're delicious, you can get tired of eating them after a time. I recommend freezing some for the winter by cooking them and freezing in airtight bags. When you're ready to eat them, just sauté them again.
There's lots of other fun things you can do with giant puffballs. I decided to make a page for them. Maybe you have some other ideas? Email me!
Hal Burdsall, recently retired from the Forest Service in Madison, has a coke with his new best friend
Mike Tansey of Indiana University finds two new friends.
Heather Hallen of Michigan State University with her new workout weight. Peter Vachuska of University of Wisconsin- West Bend is in the background
Leigha (really her name!) becomes Princess Leigha with help from her uncle Scott Cooper from the UW-La Crosse and Calvatia cyathiformis
With Amanita virosa puffballs can be an acceptable shrine substitute, if you can't find a blue bathtub
Darrell Cox of the University of Illinois goes bowling.
John Rippon, emeritus professor of Medical Mycology from the University of Chicago, is saved during a front end collision by a Calvatia airbag.
Calvatia can be used as a crash test dummy. Thanks to John Denk, from Tinley Park, Illinois for this fun image, which he took last summer, probably about the same time I took all the other Calvatia pictures.
Tammy Spillis of Michigan wrote about some more fun things to do with giant puffballs: "You can serve them up at a volley ball game. But only once. For the soccer enthusiast, a smashing experience. Little kids love to play catch with them. If the mundane isn't enough, Spray paint them black and take to the nearest bowling alley. Put on the shelf for local patrons to curse. And of course kickball is always an option."
New for Winter 2002-2003!
Jerry Weiland of the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds a new friend
Tragically, many people are born without a butt. The right Calvatia can be an acceptable butt substitute, as Jerry shows.
I hope you enjoyed this page. Fungi are fun!! For the rest of my pages on fungi, please click http://TomVolkFungi.net
©Copyright 2000-2003 by Thomas J. Volk
In the case of Chlorociboria, the cups can be stalked or unstalked, are 0.2 - 0.6 cm in diameter, and are a stunning blue-green against the forest floor. Most of the time you don't see the actual fruiting bodies but the brilliantly green-stained wood of hardwoods, including poplar, aspen, oak and ash. Woodworkers call this wood "green rot" or "green stain." Chlorociboria species are not considered "true" wood decay fungi as are the white-rot and brown-rot Basidiomycetes [click 
The discoloration is caused by the production of the pigment xylindein, which is classified by chemists as a napthaquinone. This pigment exists in several different forms of different color within the wood cells; the combination of a yellow-orange form with a blue-green form results in the dazzling blue-green coloration of the colonized wood. Xylindein can inhibit plant germination and has been tested as an algaecide. It may make wood less appealing to termites, and has been studied for its cancer-fighting properties.
Woodworkers have prized Chlorociboria-stained wood for centuries. Dr. Robert Blanchette at the University of Minnesota showed that 14th and 15th century Renaissance Italian craftsmen used the wood to provide the green colors in their intricate inlaid intarsia designs. Using electron microscopy, he was able to show that green-colored wooden splinters taken from the Italian artwork were identical to Chlorociboria-colonized wood obtained in modern northern Minnesota. In the 18th century, English woodworkers in the town of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, started using small splinters and veneers of the green-stained wood to form highly detailed pictures of animals, flowers, local landscapes, and geometric designs, which were often inset into the lids of small wooden boxes. These antiques are called "Tunbridge ware" and are very valuable today. Click 
This month's co-author is Jessie Micales Glaeser, who works at the Center for Forest Mycology Research, which is a part of the USDA Forest Service in Madison, Wisconsin, where I worked from 1989-1996. She is interested in wood decay and wood-stain fungi and is also a competitive fencer!
