Bluewell resident Bobby Turner proudly holds an approximately 7-pound, 44-inch round giant puffball mushroom he discovered beside his driveway.
BLUEWELL, W.Va. — Giant puffball or Calvatia gigantea does little justice to the monstrous fungi harvested by a Bluewell man Tuesday.
Bobby Turner watched the mushroom over three weeks as it grew to an enormous size.
“It was on the side of my driveway,” Turner said. “No one has ever really seen one around this area that big.”
Turner said, after doing some research, that the mushroom was a giant puffball.
“I don’t know anything about them,” Turner said. “It is edible.”
Turner said it was an unusual specimen and he decided to let it grow.
“People want to know what it is, young and old, then they don’t believe it,” Turner said. “I think its kind of cool. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s odd looking. You see it in the woods and you don’t know whether to go to it or not.”
The puffball has many culinary uses and can be baked, sautéed, fried, or boiled as long as the flesh remains white…