Finding the Wooly Neptune

In the Bob’s Burgers episode, “Boys Just Want to Have Fungus,” Bob finds a Wooly Neptune, a rare mushroom he’s been dreaming of, at a farmers market. Due to its rareness, however, the mushroom is way out of his desired price range. After a failed attempt at negotiating the price down, Bob decides to venture into the woods to find the Wooly Neptune himself, the belief that the mushroom would enable him to create the perfect burger fueling his sense of adventure.
Of course, the Wooly Neptune isn’t a real mushroom, however, I figured it would be amusing to find an actual mushroom that it resembles or a couple that could be merged together to create something similar.

The Wooly Neptune Color

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Skeptical about my chances of finding a vibrant blue mushroom that was actually edible, I started my search there. If I failed to find one, the whole experiment would have ended immediately, but it didn’t even require excess effort. Enter the Lactarius Indigo, or Indigo Milk Cap, a mycorrhizal fungus that grows bright blue and leaks a liquid of a similar hue when damaged. Its taste is said to vary drastically depending on the trees it is found growing around, ranging from mild and nutty with a hint of pepper to extremely peppery. Even the extreme peppery could work in a hamburger if the proper ratio is found.

What About the Wooly Part?

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For the “wooly” part of the Wooly Neptune, it took considerably higher amounts of searching. One of the first mushrooms I found was definitely wooly, but other than that looked nothing like the mushroom in the show, and was known to cause gastrointestinal problems. That doesn’t sound like something I’d like to eat in a hamburger. After that, I found a lot of images that looked fitting, but the majority of them appeared to be photoshopped. Of those that weren’t, most didn’t name the mushroom, and I couldn’t find any more information. Others were poisonous, therefore completely inadequate for putting in hamburgers.
Just as I was about to give up, I was reminded of Shaggy Mane, or Coprinus Comatus. It’s not exactly fuzzy, but has enough texture to its cap that I believe it works. The elongated cap also works with the inverted one of the Milk Cap to even out to the rounded cap of the Wooly Neptune, additionally, their mild taste would hopefully balance that of the Milk Cap, creating a flavorful burger worthy of the trouble hunting down the mystical mushroom.

I’m not sure why I latched onto this idea of creating a hypothetical hybrid Wooly Neptune, but I enjoyed the process of searching for the perfect pieces for the puzzle. What do you think about my mix? Do you know of a mushroom that would better fit the description?

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTR_SWQRIBE[/embedyt]