Under new leadership, Eagle Mushroom and Wild Food Festival returns with ‘elevated’ lineup

For Hamilton Pevec, taking the reins of Eagle Mushroom and Wild Food Festival can only be described as “serendipitous.”

“It felt like the right timing and the right fit and an opportunity to sort of infuse new energy into this legacy event because it’s been going on for 16 years, but very few people actually know about it,” the president of Western Colorado Mycological Association, mushroom farming executive and self-proclaimed “myco-ambassador” said.

Pevec and his brother, Lucien, run Carbondale-based Hamilton’s Mushrooms, and the two have helped with not only the Eagle festival but many other events around the state, including the one in Telluride — the biggest in North America.

“But it’s a $500 ticket. Plus, you have to spend a week in Telluride, so you can easily spend a few thousand dollars just being there. And that’s really unfortunate for so many people who want access to that kind of education and information and talent,” he said. “What we’re doing at Eagle is basically opening the gates and saying, ‘Hey, you know this is only a $50 ticket for the whole weekend, and everyone is welcome … we want to make it as accessible as we can.”

According to Pevec, Eagle offers its own set of perks, too.

Support Local Journalism

Donate

“Eagle sort of ticks all the boxes to have an event like this … it has facilities, has venues, it’s affordable in terms of accommodation and food. It has access to the high country or the mushroom zone by way of Brush Creek and getting up into Yeoman Park, New York Mountain and that whole area. And it has a community of people that are really into wild food, be it hunters, fishermen, foragers, chefs. It’s a special place in that regard,” he said.

‘A rare, precious gem‘

Pevec’s passion for educating others about mycology is just one reason for growing the festival. There is also an added sense of duty for keeping the festival alive.

“What makes EMF really special is really a technicality. They hold special use permits for foraging from the United States Forest Service. And this is a really rare, precious gem of a permit,” he said. “Basically, you need an outfitting permit in order to do what we do at the festival. And all the outfitting permits are grandfathered in. There’s no more permits available to do this kind of thing. And because Eagle’s been going on for 16 years, their special use permit to lead expert-guided forays has been basically grandfathered in … if we let the festival go, then we would lose those permits. And so that’s really like the special thing about the event.”

‘All mushrooms are magic’

As someone hosting mycological events at a time when “magic” mushrooms are legalized in Colorado and used for medical purposes, Pevec wants to make a clear distinction that this festival is not focused on psilocybin.

“I like to say that magic mushrooms are the gateway to mycology,” he laughed. “Mycology is considered an undiscovered mega science … fungi, in general, offer so many solutions in terms of agriculture, food systems, in terms of education, in terms of medicine and health systems, in terms of our resource management problems, in terms of waste management problems.”

To support his claim, Pevec described in-depth one of his favorites: oyster mushrooms.

“They’re decomposers. And you can train them to eat just about anything … there have been mycologists that have trained them to eat cigarette butts and tar and motor oil. So that’s just from an applied mycology standpoint. From a food security standpoint, they’re very rich in protein. They’re easy to grow. They’re delicious. They can be prepared a number of different ways. And then from a medicinal standpoint, they’re very high in fungal beta-glucans, which are anti-inflammatory, immunomodulating, anti-cancer, they’re wonderful at regulating blood sugar, high in fiber … I think in terms of the overall beauty of this mushroom is that it is so versatile. I mean, it’s good for us in every kind of way and has the potential to kind of save us from ourselves and our own mistakes around how we treat the earth.”

One of Pevec’s final points about oyster mushrooms drives an angle especially important to Coloradans.

“There’s a project out there in Colorado called The Coldfire Project, which uses an indigenous species of fungi, which are often oyster mushrooms, in order to do fire mitigation,” he said, adding “you can accelerate decomposition of burn fuels by inoculating them.

“So in Colorado, the average decomposition rate is 20 to 30 years when a tree falls over in the woods, dries up, and becomes ladder fuel for forest fires, you can chip and inoculate those ladder fuels and accelerate the decomposition to two to three years. And rather than cutting, burning, and/or removing all those fuels, you can leave them in place and capture all that carbon and reduce the risk of fire in a significant way.”

Pevec added “the other sort of tagline that mushroom people say is that ‘all mushrooms are magic.'”

“To have the opportunity to learn about the role of mushrooms in ecology and how critical they are to our life on earth will win people over right away. Not to mention, they are absolutely delicious. And the flavors of wild mushrooms cannot be replicated in any other way. You know you have to have porcinis in order to taste porcini. You have to have morels in order to taste morels. It’s those sorts of unique flavor profiles that draw all of us together.”

‘We’re really going to elevate this festival’

Pevec has plans to meet a growing demand for mycological and foraging education by boosting the festival programming.

Along with Pevec, this year’s lecturers include Britt A. Bunyard, editor of FUNGI Magazine, and Gabrielle Cerberville, author and the viral forager behind the Instagram account @chaoticforager. “I’m really reaching out to sort of headlining marquee names, people that are well-established in American mycology,” Pevec said.

There will be some movie offerings, as well.

“I’ve added a myco-centric film fest that I’m calling the ‘Fungi Film Festival,'” Pevec said.

Those more familiar with the festival’s signature events will recognize their favorites in the lineup, some with slight enhancements.

“I’m keeping the forays. I’m keeping the Wild Sage forest-to-table dinner — you know, the fancy dinner. I’m adding a closing night pizza party. They did a pizza party last time, but this time I want to really have it be like the blowout of the weekend. And then we’re doing a free live concert on Friday night. And that’s for the whole community, regardless if you have a ticket or not,” Pevec said.

The Eagle Mushroom & Wild Food Festival returns August 8-10 to the Brush Creek Pavilion. For a full lineup of events, tickets and more information, visit EagleMushroomFest.com.