Mushroom farming: it's an art

After reading through the news about growing exotic mushrooms from used coffee grounds, I wanted to take a look how mushrooms are grown on "normal" farms. I think the video below gives a great introduction.

I'm not quitting my day job just yet... but it is so tempting!

Have a good weekend everyone, and see you next week for a new foraging report, recipes and more.

Losing a few dress sizes - easy

These guys will help you lose
weight... in all the right places!

Today being Thursday, the fungi news day, I surfed the web for anything mushroom-related, and went across  two sets of stories. The first one was cultivating mushrooms with discarded coffee grounds is becoming a profitable business in several UK cities. Hmm, I'm more of an information-producing type than goods-producing one, but it is one line of production I might be interested in. After all, there are lots of coffee shops in my town that could supply me with free substrate, and there are also a fair number of restaurants who might be interested in organically produced exotic mushrooms...

The second set of stories was about the latest diet craze, apparently endorsed by numerous celebrities that lets you lose inches off your hips while keeping your bust the same size. Also, lose weight.

Now, mushrooms are very low calorie food, so no wonder that substituting them for meat allows you to shed pounds. At 16 kcal per 100 grams they are at the same level as salad leaves, celery and cucumbers. In fact, they are a negative calorie food because it takes more energy to digest them than they yield as the result. If you don't believe me, go to a seaside town and watch a herring gull as it deals with a discarded sandwich. It would eat bread, ham, cheese, drops of mayo, everything. Except salad and cucumbers, which it carefully puts aside. I'm sure if there were sandwiches in existence with raw mushrooms and celery, they would be scorned, too. Birds have no time for zero-calorie food because their digestive systems are small and their exercise routine is such that professional human sports don't even come close. Lifting your body off the ground using just muscle power is no joke.

Anyway, back to the humans and their news stories. I wholeheartedly approve of a mushroom diet. In fact, I got a pack of baby button mushrooms today so that I could eat them tomorrow at lunch. However, I just wish those journalists would stop calling mushrooms "vegetables". As in:

"Not only do mushrooms help with weight loss – the super vegetable can help improve your looks too."

What can I say...

MUSHROOMS ARE NOT VEGETABLES!

Image credits:
Button mushrooms, Agaricus bisporus
Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue

Boletus badius, the cep's less glorious cousin

Today's highlight is of Boletus badius, commonly known as bay bolete, which in my opinion is one of the most underrated wild edible mushrooms.

It must be because, due to the similar form and colour of its cap, it has to live in the perpetual shadow of its glorious cousin, the cep. Many a forager rushed to a brown dome half-hidden in leaf litter, only to discover a less attractive mushroom and be sorely disappointed.

But is their disappointment really justified?

Ceps are beautiful, can reach impressive sizes and keep their white flesh colour whether they are fried, marinated or dried. They definitely are the best mushroom aesthetically.

However, if we take a more pragmatic point of view, the taste and texture of bay boletes are indistinguishable from ceps, with an added bonus that they are also usually free of mould and maggots, even in case of very mature specimens. They are also much less fussy about their habitat (and therefore more common), and keep fruiting until winter months, when all other fungal presence in the forest is long gone. Are you not in love with them yet? Because I am.

They do stain blue when bruised, but so what. It doesn't scare a seasoned mushroom hunter like myself. There is just one thing I wish was different about them: unlike ceps that can be seen on the forest floor from twenty metres or more, these guys like hiding, and you normally won't notice one until you practically step on it.

So next time you see this wonderful mushroom, don't scorn it. Put it lovingly in the basket, and treat it just like a cep. It deserves no less.

Image credit:
Boletus badius

Chanterelle and samphire salad

As every successful mushroom hunter knows, while collecting it is important to stay attuned to the spirit world and keep your thoughts proper (i.e., fungi-directed). Letting your mind wander results in stopping finding wild food and becoming food to bloodsucking insects instead.

There is a very thin line indeed between a mushroom gatherer and a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder. In fact, you almost need to have the latter to be any good at fungi foraging. Attunement to forest spirits must be kept in check, too, or there is a very real danger of your doctor insisting you need hefty doses of haloperidol, or whatever they use to treat psychotic patients these days.

In short: it's the edge of a blade. Tread with caution.

However, when within the space of a few hours I see an article in a newspaper with chanterelle and exotic weed recipe, then find just the right quantity of chanterelles, and finally see that same exotic weed in the supermarket, it must mean something, right? The Universe is definitely trying to tell me that I must cook it, and therefore I obey.

The ingredients

Ingredients:

• 50g of pancetta 
• some olive oil 
• 250g chanterelles
• 100g of samphire 
• Salt, pepper

Process:

Prepare the chanterelles. In an ideal world, it is sufficient to wipe them with a damp cloth, but in reality chanterelles come covered in sand, twigs and slug poo, so I do have to wash them. Putting them on a kitchen towel removes some of the moisture, but still not enough. The original recipe says, cook pancetta first, then add chanterelles, but if the chanterelles need to be washed, I recommend to amend the sequence. Thus, cook the chanterelles in a little olive oil on medium high heat until the liquid has evaporated, then remove them from the pan, cook the pancetta until it releases its fat, return the chanterelles to the pan, add salt and pepper, and after 2-3 minutes add the samphire. One more minute, stirring constantly, and you are done!

I quite liked the combination of pancetta and chanterelles, but not so sure about samphire: it's too salty, and it tastes like seaweed. Maybe next time I'll replace it with something else and see if it makes the dish more edible. Universe, you know what? You were wrong! 

Looks better than it tastes, but maybe it'll find its fans.

Horses and mosquitoes

Saturday's trip to the forest confirmed one thing: mushrooms do not like it if you let your thoughts wander. And unfortunately it was one of those days when I just had too much on my mind.

First thing, I found an excellent spot with early blackberries, all juicy and sweet and ready to be eaten. You see, plants don't really care if you are distracted. They are just there for the picking.

First find of the day

And next to them, a variety of mushroom that equally was not so fussy about my state of mind. Humble grassland fungi, very plant-like in this respect.

Hiding in the weeds, fairy ring champignon (Marasmius oreades), at your service

After that, unfortunately, things went rather downhill. Going along my usual mossy paths, I met a fair number of ceps, all were mouldy and maggot-ridden, with the exception of one specimen:

Yours truly, king of all mushrooms (a slight slug issue apparent, but no matter)

I picked it on a secret path that is used by only myself and roe deer and lots of ticks. Got a couple of tick bites there, and my problems were just starting.

Exiting the deer path, I met a competitor. On horseback! She looked at my basket, and said, "Oh, don't go that way, I've just beat you to the mushrooms." She had a bin bag (BIN BAG? Sacrilege!) containing three ceps.

I should have listened to her. I should have gone another way. But I thought, come on, what can you possibly see from horseback? So I went the way she came from. And all I found were mosquitoes. And some midges. And then some more mosquitoes. My skin was soaked with jungle-strength insect repellent, and do you think those insects hesitated even a little bit? Think again!..

With three mushrooms in my basket, I was about to give up the hunt and head home, when my wet feet and itchy bites and frustration finally made me to concentrate. At that moment, I suddenly realised that I was standing at the beginning of a forest clearing that I never explored before. It also looked much drier than the previous section of the woods, and there was no sign of mosquitoes. That was obviously the way to go.

In under a minute, I found several bay boletes (Boletus badius), a mushroom scorned by many pickers, but no worse than cep in my opinion:

Often underestimated, but always worthwhile: bay bolete

Its species highlight is coming this week, so no more about it just now. With basket already half full, I proceeded along the clearing, only to see this:

Which way?

The moss reached to my knees! Fallen trees seemed to block the path entirely, but before heading back I decided to take a break and eat an energy bar and have a sip of water. Sitting down, I noticed that the clearing continued beyond the blockage. It seems, forest spirits were smiling on me again.

In the end, the clearing led me to a known path, with lots of chanterelle spots, while avoiding the current forest management works. I'll write about them someday. It's soul-destroying though, so it won't be any time soon.

In the end, it was a decent trip, with almost a basketful. The chanterelle spots yielded about 500g of edibles, so an appropriate recipe tomorrow is definitely in order. Stay tuned for that, and meanwhile, don't eat any strange mushrooms!

Yield of the day: bay boletes (top left), scarletina boletes (top), ceps (top right), chanterelles (centre),
two saffron milk caps and one slippery jack on top of them (bottom right), a handful of blackberries (right), and
assorted fungi for identification and spore prints (bottom left)

How to command your fungal minions

This is a trailer to Mushroom Wars game for PlayStation3, and more recently, for iPad.

"TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR MUSHROOM ARMY"
"LEAD YOUR MUSHROOM ARMY TO VICTORY"

I'd say to the developers, eat less of funny mushrooms and maybe you'll still find your way back to the reality space occupied by the rest of humanity. However, I just might blow the dust off my PS3 and check it out. As long as my namekos do not have objections, that is.

Enjoy, and see you next week for more stories of mushroom hunts. The weather forecast for tomorrow is cloudy but no rain - excellent! For once, I might get out of the forest with my feet still dry...

Eating strange mushrooms

Can you tell the difference between
these two? If not, then experimenting
with strange mushrooms is not for you.

About once a year, I eat a new kind of mushroom, both to increase the range of collected edible species, and out of curiosity, as all mushrooms have different taste and texture, and therefore can be used in varying recipes.

But what gives me confidence to eat strange mushrooms despite the constant barrage of news stories of people getting poisoned? Here is a list of handy tips:

1) Always be sure of the identity of mushroom you are planning to consume
2) Know the List of deadly fungi by heart and never eat anything that resembles these mushrooms
3) Particularly, never eat Amanitas - these account for 95% of all fungi-related deaths
4) Always make sure it's properly cooked
5) Never eat more than a small quantity the first time
6) Always keep a sample of your mushroom in the fridge, in case you do make a mistake and the toxin needs to be identified.

Observing these guidelines minimises the risk but there are still no absolute certainties. The rules make it highly unlikely that you'll get seriously ill or die from such experiments, but gastric upsets of varying severity are a very real possibility. The guarantee, ultimately, is as good as your identification skill. For instance, the photo above is an extreme case of very similar mushrooms only differing in one small detail: one of them has fine red dots on the stem right under the cap, while the other has a netted pattern. I doubt that many people can tell them apart, and this is the real reason why collecting wild fungi for the pot is never going to be a very popular pastime.

Image credits:
Boletus luridiformis
Boletus pulcherrimus

Orange cap, black dots on stem

My favourite!

Another message from Russia, this time from around the far north:

"We went to forested tundra yesterday, found some mushrooms. Only took young caps of red mushrooms, none of the brown kind, because the browns turn all soggy and mushy very quickly. In the end, didn't manage to fully load the helicopter, brought home just a couple of buckets each."

This, people, is how mushrooms are collected around Noviy Urengoy. It is one of the major oil-producing areas in Russia, in case you were wondering about the helicopter. There is no shortage of these flying machines there, and that's right, if you are high enough in the pecking order, you can take one to get you to fungi.

The "red mushrooms" are orange birch boletes, which that far north are coloured so brightly that they rival fly agarics, and the "browns" are their close cousins, brown birch boletes.

Orange birch bolete is, in my opinion, one of the finest mushrooms you can find in the forest. Its taste and texture are superior to the cep, and it only loses in the competition for the title of the king mushroom because it is somewhat toxic in its raw state, and it turns black when dried or frozen.

Otherwise, it is an excellent edible mushroom, and due to its firm texture it can be cooked in a variety of ways: fried, stewed and even barbecued. Sadly, in lower latitudes they are not nearly as abundant as ceps, so each find is special, like the one in the photo that I snapped on a recent trip to Scottish Highlands.

Just look at it. Utterly adorable!

Colourful mushroom BBQ

Ingredients (note the psychedelic
colours)

When people ask me, do I ever get tired of eating mushrooms, I always answer in the negative. After all, my reputation of an extreme fungi lover is at stake here. However, I have to admit that there are times at the height of wild mushroom season when things are getting a bit overwhelming. I do my best to preserve the collected mushrooms for later by freezing and drying, but only ceps can take it without significant deterioration of taste and texture, and there are so many other kinds that make it into my basket. I just can't resist them!

So, after about a month of frying, stewing and roasting comes a time when even a seasoned fungi eater like myself thinks, there really can be such a thing as too many mushrooms.

Observe the toxins coming out

And what do I do then? I start grilling them! After all, with the summer almost over, it's a perfect excuse to take out the bbq tools one last time. Thus, without any further ado, behold the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 500g of firm fleshy mushrooms. I used orange birch boletes and scarletina boletes but for less extreme experiences chestnut mushrooms from a local supermarket will do fine. If using the latter, just disregard the boiling instructions as this is unnecessary.
• 1 red pepper
• 1 eggplant
• 1 onion (optional)
• olive oil, salt

Process:

Frying, to add that bit of extra flavour

Cut the wild mushrooms into bbq-sized pieces, or if using chestnut mushrooms, remove stalks and leave caps whole. Boil water with some salt, add the mushrooms, boil for 5 minutes, drain. Repeat, this time for 10 minutes. This is necessary to remove the toxins from orange birch boletes and scarletina boletes. Not that these are particularly dangerous, but we don't want any stomach upsets, right? As stated above, this step is unnecessary for supermarket mushrooms.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, add the mushroom pieces and fry until golden on both sides. Cut the aubergine into square pieces and fry it, too. Cut the red pepper into square pieces and leave it raw. Slice the onion to make some rings (only if you like it)

Put the mushrooms, aubergines, onions and peppers onto skewers. Place over medium-hot grill (I did this once the meat that I had for the evening was cooked), turning frequently until peppers start withering.

And... you are done. Serve with the sauce of your choice!

A little bit more, and they'll be ready to serve!

Too much rain

Just before it started raining - a cute
pair of amanitas

A friend of mine is writing to me from Siberia: "There hasn't been any rain for three weeks, and there are no mushrooms in the taiga. My wife and I were looking for three hours and we just got enough to fill one bucket".

Remember this, people: "no mushrooms in taiga" equals "one bucketful per three hours of foraging".

And now, back to the real world.

A month ago I was complaining that there was no rain. Now there is way too much! I know, I know, there is no pleasing some people. But I have a cause, so it makes it ok. No? All right, I'll stop moaning now. Happy? OK.

Sun comes out, just as it's time
to head home

At least, there are mushrooms. Lots of them! However, I hardly made any photos this time because it was pouring down while I was in the forest, and I don't have a waterproof camera yet. Perhaps, one of the blog readers would like to donate me one?.. Haha, just kidding.

The news of the day: slippery jacks and orange birch boletes are finally out. There was also a good number of ceps, but unfortunately due to the very high humidity a lot of them were getting mouldy, even some very young ones.

In any case, between the two participants of the Saturday raid we got two basketfuls, although it took us about 6 hours to get to that mark. It's not Siberia. We just have to deal with it.

The final breakdown of the hunt wass as follows (all lovingly spread on my garden table):

• 20+ ceps (a few had to be discarded due to serious mould/maggot issues) - centre
• some chanterelles (approximately 500g) - bottom right
• 8 slippery jacks, all in good condition - left
• 9 orange birch boletes, ditto - top right
• 3 lurid boletes - top left

And now, I'm off to make some bbq sticks using lurid boletes and orange birch boletes. Both are known to be seriously toxic if undercooked, but if I survive the sampling, I'll post the recipe tomorrow!

And now, some good news

The best thing ever

The Scotsman reports:

"If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a mushroom surprise. Fungi experts are predicting a bumper year for wild mushrooms in Scotland this year thanks to a hot and dry summer."

Indeed, the recent trip has been a fungal paradise. Being an experienced mushroom hunter, I was not really surprised as I am aware of the fact that hot dry summers provide excellent conditions for the mycelium to accumulate nutrients, which, with the arrival of cooler weather and rain, translate into beautiful ceps and orange birch boletes and chanterelles. I am going to the forest tomorrow, despite the forecast for torrential rain, and it had better be worth it!

Have a great weekend, everyone, and I'll be back next week, with further reports from the fungi harvest frontline.

Deadly webcaps, again

Deadly webcaps: GILLS

This has been on the news, and therefore it must be true.

An "experienced forager", who "had been collecting mushrooms for many years" fed deadly webcaps that he mistook for ceps to himself, his wife, brother-in-law and brother-in-law's wife. Result: all four eaters in hospital for weeks, with varying degrees of kidney failure, one of them needing a transplant. Luckily, the children, who were also invited to sample the poison, wouldn't have any, otherwise they would have almost certainly died.

Deadly webcaps. Mistaken for ceps. You've got to be kidding me.

Ceps: TUBES

*HEADDESK*

In this post I have already wondered how a deadly webcap could be possibly mistaken for a chanterelle. Now I wonder no more - at least, both mushrooms are of similar size, and they both have gills. After all, I've observed small children to confuse dogs with cows, so why not. But ceps and deadly webcaps? It's like mistaking a chicken for a pig! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just go into a quiet corner and cry. Today the world's stupidity is a bit too much for me.

Image credits:
Deadly webcap, Cortinarius rubellus
Ceps, Boletus edulis

Scarlet and scary

Boletus luridiformis,
a perfect specimen

John Wright, the author of the River Cottage Handbook on Mushrooms, says thus: "Do not worry about the Leccinum's tendency to go various shades of greens and pinks and blacks when cut - they are just trying to frighten you".

Now, I have eaten a good number of orange and brown birch boletes (both of which are Leccinum species), but when it comes to this relative of theirs, the scarletina bolete, Boletus luridiformis, it took me several years to get together the courage to put it into my cooking pot.

The reason is, it's indeed lurid: velvety dark reddish-brown cap sits on top of a densely scarlet-dotted stem, the cap underside is dark-red, and its bright yellow flesh turns a vivid blue when cut. Everything in this mushroom screams: DO NOT EAT ME!

There is a method
to my apparent madness...
(if you don't have one,
NEVER eat strange mushrooms!)

However, the abovementioned reference book says that it is safe to eat as long as it is thoroughly cooked. So the scream apparently just means, "don't eat me raw". I'm fine with that!

The method for cooking I chose, just to be on the safe side, was to slice one cap, boil the pieces in plenty of water for 15 minutes, discard the water, and then fry the fungus in some butter with salt. The result was pleasantly firm, mushroomy and nutty. I only ate a little bit at first, as this fungus is known to cause gastric upsets in some people, but if all is well in the next 24 hours, it would mean that I'm one of the lucky majority who are unaffected, and then there will be yet another mushroom that I'll be able to harvest!

Image credit:
Boletus luridiformis aka Boletus erythropus

Lots of ceps!

However, let me not get ahead of myself.

The trip started with finding a beautiful specimen of edible Amanita rubescens (or possibly deadly poisonous Amanita pantherina). I left it alone as the gamble wasn't worth it, but there was immediately a good feeling about the trip, as the emergence of this fungus usually means that ceps are in season.

Delicious or deadly? If unsure, leave it be

Right next to it, some small boletes - also a sign of bigger things to come. I took a few for spore prints and positive ID, although I very much doubt they offer much in terms of edibility.

Edible, possibly - but why bother?

And then, some beautiful false chanterelles. Contrary to popular belief, they are not poisonous, but merely inedible. I still love them dearly, because, like the two encounters above, they are a definite indicator that deeper in the forest, something big awaits.

False chanterelle - note the strictly bifurcating true gills distinguishing it from its true namesake

Some wild sorrel - I picked a bunch to put into my salad.

Tender leaves with delicate sour taste, excellent in salads with pickles

And then, finally, the big ones. Meet Boletus luridiformis - hideous on the outside, delicious on the inside (or so most reference books are telling me anyway). I have never seen or picked these before, and the plan is to cook them tomorrow. The largest cap is currently resting over a white paper napkin for a spore print, but I am absolutely positive of its identification already: its appearance is unmistakable. Provided I survive sampling the dish (don't see why not), I'll post its species highlight tomorrow, as it is a most remarkable fungus.

Beautiful and deadly... no, just beautiful (and its seven brothers nearby, too)

Turning the corner... and words fail me. Spirits of the forest have smiled on me (even though, as everybody knows, they don't exist). Just LOOK at the size of these fungi!

...! ...! ...!

Here is the final image, after which I'll leave you in peace: the total haul of the day. This is the reason why mushroom hunters love their pursuit so much: you never know what you are going to get. One week it's a handful of chanterelles, and then the next - this. 3 kilograms of finest mushrooms! Today, life is good!

Mostly ceps, but also lurid boletes, larch boletes, chanterelles and false saffron milk caps

Mushroom-filled eggs

Ingredients

I know it's Monday and I'm supposed to post a foraging report, but this weekend I had visitors who were not keen on mushrooming. They were keen on my cooking though, so today I'm posting a recipe, and foraging report will be tomorrow. Please, forest spirits, let there be ceps, please!..

Ahem.

There are, of course, no spirits in Scottish forests. Everybody knows that. Now, to the recipe.

Ingredients:

Main ingredient (fried)

• 4 eggs *
• 6 small forestiere mushrooms (or any other mushrooms would do, but this recipe works best with stronger-flavoured varieties)
• half an onion
• real mayonnaise (the one that has fresh eggs on the list of the ingredients and NOT egg powder, otherwise I recommend to use olive oil instead)
• salt and pepper
• fresh herbs to garnish

Ready to blend

* The recipe can be scaled to any number of eggs. The limit is only the size of your pot and your patience.

Process:

Put the eggs into a small pot, add cold water and plenty of salt (this is needed for the eggs not to leak out if their shells crack during cooking). Bring to the boil and cook for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the onion and mushrooms and fry on medium heat in a little olive oil until nice and golden.

Eggs, filled

When the eggs are ready, carefully remove the shells and cut the eggs in half, remove the yolks and put the whites onto a serving plate. Combine the yolks, mushrooms and onion in a blender, add salt and pepper to taste. If you do not have a blender, just use a fork to mash the yolks and mix them with the rest of the ingredients by hand. If the mixture turns out to be too dry, add a bit of mayonnaise, but not too much, or it'll turn all runny and ugly.

Using a teaspoon, distribute the mixture onto the egg whites: fill the yolk hollows first and then spread any remaining mixture on top. Glaze the egg halves with a bit of mayonnaise (this is not strictly necessary but it conceals the drab brownish colour of the filling) and decorate with basil or parsley.

Enjoy! Eggs and mushrooms are a match made in heaven, and this recipe is yet another proof of it.

Tastes better than it looks!

Edible mushroom identification with Peter Jordan

Videos as these, in my opinion, do not help in identifying edible mushrooms. Indeed, it is rather dangerous to go wild mushroom foraging armed with just the information they give. Good printed field guides and reference books are much more useful in this respect.

So why am I posting this? Because it gives me great pleasure to see someone pick edible mushrooms and put them into his basket.

Enjoy the video, and see you next week, for more mushroom stories.

Lactarius indigo

It really looks like this

Today's Wikipedia featured article of the day is Lactarius indigo, the blue milk cap.

Two amazing things about it:

• this is not Photoshop
• it's edible!

Unfortunately, it doesn't grow in Scotland, just in Mexico and Guatemala. I so wish I could add this splash of colour to my basket...

Image credit:
Lactarius indigo

Beatrix Potter, a Victorian naturalist

Souvenirs from the Armitt Museum

My recent visit to Lake District was centred mostly around nature trails and dogspotting, as well as doing weird things such as scaring goldfish living in a telephone box next to a pub in Torver, and giving a traffic cone a tour of the Northern lakes (the latter was my companion's idea, and I swear we were not eating any funny mushrooms... although, after having written this down, I am not entirely sure). However, there was one cultural experience, and that was a visit to the Armitt Museum in Ambleside. It would have been just another local history museum but for one remarkable woman who lived in the area for for most of her life bequeathed to it her archives: Beatrix Potter.

Now, everyone knows that she is a highly acclaimed children's author, the writer who brought to us the tales of Peter Rabbit and his friends, in which charming and simple text is accompanied by beautiful illustrations. In my opinion, these illustrations are a major factor in the success of her books, as it is thanks to them that the stories and characters in them are really brought to life.

Illustration to "The Tale of Squirrel
Nutkin" (spot the mushrooms!)

What is not so well known is that before writing her first Peter Rabbit story she was a passionate amateur mycologist, and that her legacy includes hundreds of fungi drawings, so detailed and accurate that after more than 100 years they are still easily identifiable. She was also the first person to prove that fungi propagated by spores and managed to germinate them (among her drawings there are her observations of this process through a microscope). She also was the first (in Britain) to suggest that fungi and algae comprising lichens are symbiotic rather than parasitic. Altogether remarkable! She even submitted a paper to the Linnean Society on the subject of spore germination, but it was never published, almost certainly due to some power play of the people in charge. And, almost certainly, because she was a woman. Arrgh, Victorians!

It must have been a great disappointment for her, but there is something we have to thank those eggheads. I am sure that their refusal to publish her paper spurred her to try her hand at a different kind of publication, and a good children's book is much better than any scientific paper, especially one that actually has such significant educational value: her illustrations of plants and English countryside are extremely accurate, even though her description of animal habits is certainly not! I am deeply saddened though that one thing is missing from them: fungi. Except for one illustration to "The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin", all she ever drew for Peter Rabbit was plants. Perhaps that experience at the Linnean cut deeper than her biographers thought, as after it she gradually stopped producing fungi drawings altogether.

Chanterelle rice with wholegrain mustard

This is a simple recipe for the times when wild mushroom pickings are scarce. Just a handful of chanterelles adds lots of flavour to the rice base, and makes a great addition to sausages or steak.

Ingredients

Ingredients:

• a handful of chanterelles
• one small onion
• two cloves of garlic
• 200g rice
• 2 tsp wholegrain mustard
• salt to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp sherry

Process:

Chanterelle mixture - ready to be
added to the rice

Finely chop onion, garlic and chanterelles. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, add onions, cook on medium heat until they start to soften. Add chanterelles, cook until all water evaporates, occasionally stirring. Add garlic, cook the mixture for 1 further minute and add sherry. Once it is absorbed into mushrooms, reduce the heat, add the mustard and salt, stir well. After 2-3 minutes turn off the heat and set aside.

Cook your rice using your preferred method. I normally use Delia's, but obviously without onions, since they are already present in the chanterelle mixture.

Once the rice is almost cooked, fluff it with a fork as Delia suggests, and add the filler, mix well and let it stand for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Here is what it should look like at the end - enjoy!

Things are picking up

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a very successful trip by any standards, especially taking into account it's early August - this time in previous years, ceps and other edible boletes used to ambush me left and right and middle. As it happens, after 5 hours' walk I only brought home a handful of chanterelles. But, something is definitely changing in the forest - see for yourself.

Firstly, I found these white fungi, next to an old beech, growing among dead wood. Never seen them before! The closest match in my reference book is Clitopilus scyphoides, but it's not really funnel-shaped, so must be some lookalike.

Next, came a couple of specimens of flaming scalycap growing from underneath a rotting conifer trunk.

Then, some little brown mushrooms, cucumber tuft or something very similar.

After that, some even littler white mushrooms, at whose ID I cannot even give a stab:

And, finally - something edible:

Last but not least, in the darkest and wettest part of the woods, a grey spotted amanita. Its edibility is suspect, and in any case it shouldn't be eaten because of the possibility of confusion with deadly poisonous Amanita phalloides and Amanita pantherina. However, its appearance suggests that the conditions are finally right for larger mushrooms to appear. It probably means that next week I'll finally bring home a cep!

And, just to wrap up, the result of the day:

Small in number, but big and juicy, and I have plans for them which involve rice and wholegrain mustard.

Stay safe, don't eat any strange mushrooms, and I'll see you tomorrow for the recipe!