Hedgehog fungus: the one with no bad twin, and how I cook it
October 18, 2025 · 3 min read
If there is one wild mushroom a beginner can feel at ease with, it is the hedgehog fungus, because of what is under the cap. Instead of gills or pores there are hundreds of soft, pale spines, like the bristles of a very fine brush, that rub off easily under a thumb. Nothing poisonous in my part of the world has spines like that. The cap is a dull cream to pale orange, often lopsided, and the flesh is white and firm and smells faintly of nothing much. I find them in October and November on the mossy floor of mixed beech and oak woods, usually in loose groups, sometimes half buried in leaf litter so that only a pale bump shows.
Even with the spines doing most of the work, I go through the full routine: a whole specimen dug up with the base intact, a note of the trees and the ground, a spore print (white, as expected), and a look at the few other spiny species in the books, none of which are dangerous and all of which look different enough once you have the real thing in your hand. The spines also make the cleaning job peculiar. Soil and needles lodge between them, and washing drives water into the flesh, so I use a soft pastry brush and knock the cap gently against the side of the basket.
Cooking them took some trial. The first pan I did in butter from the start, and they sat in a puddle of their own liquid and went grey and soft. Now I slice them about a centimetre thick and put them in a dry, hot pan for four or five minutes first, turning once, until the water has steamed off and the edges are starting to colour. Only then do I add a good knob of butter, salt and a little chopped parsley, and give them another two minutes. The texture comes out meaty, with a bite closer to a firm cultivated mushroom than anything else I have found, and a faint peppery note that fades when they are cooked through.
Older specimens, the ones with spines browning and caps gone soft at the edge, are bitter, so I take only young, firm ones and leave the rest to drop their spores. The first time I ate them I had a small plate, perhaps 80 grams, and nothing else new that day, then waited a day before having more. That is my habit with every species the first time, even the easy ones.