At the end of the season

I had a wonderful time in the forest this Sunday. The mushrooming season is clearly coming to a close, but I must confess that despite the scarcity of fungi, these last trips I find the most pleasurable of all. Mostly, because of the declining number of blood-sucking insects. A good repellent does away with 99% of the problem, but the remaining 1% can really hurt. Another reason, perhaps unexpectedly, is that there are fewer mushrooms.

Yes, that's right! When there are many mushrooms, they are harder to carry home, and also collecting them is a routine and not an adventure that it should be. Early August, every mushroom is just a +1 for the freezer. Late September, each and every one is an achievement and testimony to a mushroom hunter's skill.

And here was the first set - Lycoperdon perlatum:

Not that spectacular, perhaps, but edible and abundant

In fact, I have never cooked these before, so there is the challenge for tomorrow. After that, one of the forest staples:

Brown birch bolete - not the most amazing mushroom in existence, but every little helps!

Not long after - a whole family of slippery jacks:

Now, there is enough for supper in the basket!

Next, a perfect specimen of a fly agaric. Left it alone, of course, but kept my eyes peeled, because where there are fly agarics, there would be ceps, too.

If only it were edible... but so beautiful!

And then, right next to it - I couldn't believe my eyes! So late in the season, but there is was:

A cep! Touched by mould a bit, but still edible.

And here is the complete crop of the day. Just enough for tea!

Pearly puffballs (top left, brown birch boletes (centre), bay bolete (top right), chanterelles (bottom right),
cep (centre left), and slippery jacks all over the place.

More mushroom cultivation

Lately I have been thinking more and more of it - and accordingly, watching videos on how it's done. Here is how they do it in California (not that it's different from anywhere else!)

The essential steps to growing mushrooms, according to this video, are:

- making mushroom compost
- peak-heat
- spawning
- casing
- pinning
- harvesting

Enjoy, and see you next week for more mushroom stories!

Which kind of chanterelle?

Early chanterelles

A recent news article raises an interesting issue, which is that many mushrooms that we normally think of as a single species, are not. Kathryn Perez and Matthew Foltz proved by DNA analysis that golden chanterelles growing in Hixon Forest in Wisconsin are in fact three different species, and not merely colour variants.

Chanterelles are mushrooms that I collect every foraging trip, and one thing I have been puzzled about is how long their fruiting season is. It starts in mid-June and continues until mid-October, and sometimes even later if there is no ground frost. No other fungus in the local forest covers even half of that span.


Over these four months, it does not fruit everywhere though, but rather there are "early" and "late" spots, and the mushrooms from these do have a difference in appearance. Early chanterelles are typically smaller and lighter in colour, with cream stems and wavy false gills. Later in the year, I see only yolk-coloured, larger fungi.

Late chanterelles

Previously, I thought that the difference in shape and colour is explained by the variance in conditions in which these chanterelles grow, temperature- and humidity-wise, but I realise now that their emergence in different spots probably does mean that they are distinct species.

Not sure about one thing though - the article says, "Documenting the new species, their locations, and physical differences including taste, will be of interest to the culinary industry". I am no mycologist, but I have cooked a lot of chanterelles in my life. You can trust me on this: these mushrooms might look different, but THEY ALL TASTE THE SAME!

Beef stroganoff with wild mushrooms

Ingredients

With the unique crop I brought home last Sunday, I thought I needed to do something special, and taking upon the challenge of cooking an edible beef stroganoff seemed just right.

Ingredients were as follows:

- 300g rump steak, cut in thin strips
- flour, to coat the above
- 100g shallots
- a few cloves of garlic
- large glass of white wine

The right way to fry meat

- 100g single cream
- sage, bay leaf, peppercorns
- 1 cube of porcini stock (but vegetable stock would do just fine)
- herbs, to garnish

Now, am I missing something? Oh, yes, and of course:

about 300g of finest wild mushrooms as found in Scottish forests. I have used ceps, slippery jacks, one brown birch bolete and a few hundred amethyst deceivers. But if you can't get those, plain chestnut mushrooms will do just fine.

The main ingredient

Process:

Coat the meat in flour, and throw on pre-heated frying pan. Fry for a few minutes on high heat, turning once. The meat must brown slightly, but must NOT be cooked through. This is very important as otherwise it'll stay tough, no matter how long it is stewed afterwards. In another pan, fry the halved shallots, sliced garlic and sage leaves, on medium heat. Once the meat has browned, add it to the shallots. Make sure you scrape all the delicious crispy bits from the pan into the pot. That's what will make the stroganoff taste so good!

Last stage, 30 minutes before end

Turn the heat up and pour in the wine. Dissolve the stock cube in 0.5l of boiling water and pour it all in. Cover the pot with heavy lid and simmer on medium low heat.

Meanwhile, clean and wash the mushrooms. Add them to the pot after 1 hour, and cook for a further 30 minutes. Add the cream, bring to the boil, and you are done!

Serve with chips or roast potatoes and fresh herbs. Bon appetit!

Note how the tiny laccarias keep their purple colour in the stew. These little beauties are amazing!

Amethyst deceiver

Laccaria amethystina does not typically get good reviews regarding its edibility. Most sources list it as mediocre, or even hardly worthwhile. It's true that it's a rather small mushroom, with fairly tough texture and not very distinctive taste. However, it is very special for me. Its taste may not be great, but I love it for the fact that it presents a mushroom hunter with a serious challenge. And for its colour, of course. But challenge still comes first.

Now, anyone can identify and pick ceps. They are very large, highly visible mushrooms that you can't miss. Chanterelles are a bit more tricky because they are smaller, and in autumn the leaves of birch, their favourite tree, take on the same colour, and therefore looking for them a bit more difficult.

Amethyst deceivers take the challenge up a few notches. Considering their bright purple colour, you might think that it's not a big deal, but spotting their fruit bodies on beech leaf litter is next to impossible, partly due to their small size, but mostly because in the tree shade the brown of leaves and the purple of mushrooms don't look at all different.

So, if you managed to bring back home a crop of these beauties, you can call yourself an expert mushroom hunter. And how to cook them? Come back tomorrow to find out!

Image credit:

Laccaria amethystina 

Forest gems

Late September is the end of mushroom season in Scotland, so when setting out on my usual route this Sunday I wasn't expecting much to put into my basket. On a day like that it hardly matters though: the walk would have been rewarding even without any finds. Sunshine, gentle wind, the smell of heated pine needles, a few mosquitoes... OK, mosquitoes were not a welcome thing, but that's what insect repellent is for, right?

For the first couple of hours, I was only finding false chanterelles, lots of them. Very fine specimens, though:

If only it were real! Note the crowded forked gills that distinguish this fungus from the true chanterelle.

I could have picked hundreds of them, but alas - they are quite inedible, although not bad-looking, I must admit.

Then, finally something to put into my basket. Nearly stepped on it!

Small, but firm and maggot-free

An hour later, a nice find on a mossy forest path. I'm not greatly excited by brown birch boletes, but so late in the mushroom year, attitudes change.

No time to be fussy! Get into the basket, my friend.

On the final stretch, the path took me through an ancient beech wood, where the leaf litter layer was so thick that it was like walking on a mattress. And there I found them! Several hundreds of fresh, shiny, purple amethyst deceivers, Laccaria amethystina. Also, a few true chanterelles mixed up with them as a bonus, and a small cep, too!

Gem of the woods: extraordinary colour (and yes, it is edible)

I'll write more about these beautiful fungi later this week. They made my day!

The complete crop: top left - brown birch boletus; top - two slippery jacks; right - a couple of hundred of amethyst
deceivers; centre - saffron milk cap (sadly, all maggoty despite to good looks); bottom - golden chanterelles;
bottom left - two ceps. An excellent haul, considering the timing. Cooking report coming up!

This might be infectious...

Wonderful crop from Ukraine

I have a Ukrainian friend who has never been interested in collecting mushrooms. She is (or maybe was - see below) a committed gardener. If you have read Karel Čapek's The Gardener's Year, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, I have placed my translation of the Gardener's prayer from the book at the bottom of this post, so that you can get the idea.

Anyway, our previous discussions of fungi were usually limited to the ways of preventing phytophthora growth on her potatoes, tomatoes and other fruits of her allotment. So I was more than mildly shocked when she skyped me today, and the whole half hour of our conversation was spent showing the mushrooms she picked in some faraway forest. She had to get up at 5am to get there and back in one day! Even I'm not manic enough to do that.

I did take her mushrooming a couple of times when she visited me this summer, and she didn't show much enthusiasm then. I now suspect that local ticks carry a foraging bug which, like Lime disease, takes its time to incubate. Well, what can I say - welcome to the club!

---

Gardener's prayer, from The Gardener's Year by Karel Čapek

‘O Lord, grant us rain every day, from about midnight until three o’clock in the morning, and let it be gentle and warm so that the earth can soak it in; but make sure it would not rain on campion, alyssum, helianthemum, lavender, and the others which you in your infinite wisdom know are drought-loving plants; I can make you a list of their names if you need me to – and grant that the sun may shine the whole day long, but not in all places (for instance, not on spiraea, or on gentian, plantain lily, and rhododendron), and let it not be too hot; that there may be plenty of dew and little wind, enough earthworms, no woodlice or slugs, no mildew, and let once a week liquid manure and pigeon's droppings fall from heaven. Amen.’

What's the largest living thing on the planet?

Hint: it's not a giant panda! The video might seem light-hearted, but it asks a very important question: what is the meaning of a "single living organism"? The two examples of the largest ones push the definition to the limit.

Enjoy the video, and come back tomorrow, for more mushroom stories!

The politics of porcini

This or a parliament session?
The answer is obvious!

I came across this amusing article today. Long story short, Claudio Burlando, an Italian politician, skipped a parliament session in order to go foraging for ceps in the woods near his home village. And how did he get caught? By tweeting the pictures of two basketfuls that he brought home.

Once the secret was out, the scandal picked up with true Italian passion and, I must add, equally true political absurdity. The incident was characterised as "shameful", "scandalous" and "a vigorous controversy". Hey, we are talking about porcini here! It's not prostitution, drugs or corruption. Keep things in perspective, for goodness sake.

Reading further, I learned that A) signor Burlando booked his day off weeks in advance, because it was the date of his annual family reunion; and B) the parliament session was convened at a very short notice, on a day when it is not normally held.

What can I say. All evidence considered, I fully approve of his behaviour. And as for his fuming colleagues - I'm sure they are just jealous of his haul. I know I am!

Image credit:
Boletus edulis

Where to study mycology?

If only we knew how to cultivate this!

I am still on my fever run, you see, but things are gradually going back to normal. I thought, suppose I'm going to attempt to cultivate these amazing wild fungi, wouldn't it help with the project if I got some sort of formal mycological credentials?

Unfortunately, it looks like there are very few places where you could study mycorrhizal fungi in the UK (no wonder so few people can even spell the word right!). I find it surprising since advances in their cultivation can provide a cost-effective and valuable source of food.

However, in the real world - "Among the many specializations of microbiology, mycology is one of the smallest. Because it is a small, niche field, few education, training and career opportunities exist" (full text here).

Maybe, it's time to change that.

Crazy ideas

Stage one: putting in spores

This weekend there was no forest trip, alas. This forager fell victim to a rather nasty common cold virus and had to spend a few days under a warm blanket, with painkillers and lots of tea and raspberry jam.

It wasn't all that bad. In fact, I think all people need a break from normal routine once in a while. We keep hearing that finding a cure for common cold is imminent, but I sure hope it won't happen in my lifetime.

Anyway, while semi-conscious in bed, I had this brilliant idea of how to cultivate chanterelles. All you have to do is to make a plantation of tiny trees of the required variety (birch, beech or pine will all work), put in some chanterelle spores, and - voila! You have a cultivated chanterelle.

Need I say that my paracetamol-infused brain could not find a single thing wrong with this plan! So I dragged myself from under the blanket, found the biggest chanterelle I had in the fridge and stuck it next to my rescued beech sapling that I found uprooted by forest management operations a few months ago.

Now that life is beginning to get back to normal, I have my doubts. But who knows, it might just work. There was at least one report of successful cultivation of chanterelles, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Mushroom kadai masala

Looks delicious, and not too difficult, provided you can get hold of all the spices. I assume the tomato, chilli, ginger and cashew paste is prepared in advance using a blender.

A great cooking video, just one thing though - mushrooms are not vegetables!

Fungi and bacteria speed up tree growth

Now we know why trees
grow so tall

Today's news article contains a report that a special mix of bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi speed up tree growth and therefore can be a significant tool in reforestation.

The figure of 40% is most impressive: in the study, fruiting trees reached maturity in 3-4 years instead of 6-7, and non-fruiting varieties displayed similarly vigorous growth.

Strictly speaking, it's not news that fungi and soil bacteria are beneficial for plant growth, but such significant increase in growth means that the researchers managed to stumble on a lucky combination of the two.

Great work. If only the article authors would spell "mycorrhizal" right!

Image credit:
Oak forest

What's in a mushroom hunt?

Nothing! After a few hundred of
fruitless checks, mushroom hunting
loses its appeal... Until the next trip!

I came across this amusing article today, which attempts to explain why Russians are so fond of mushroom hunting, or "quiet hunt".

I think it very rightly captures the essence of mushrooming joy: you never know what you are going to get, and every next tree could host a potential treasure... or not! I have to point out though, that after checking 500 trees or so with no results things can get rather tense. Therefore it is important to have a planning element to your spontaneous mushroom adventure: when the extreme frustration comes in, you need to head for a spot where you know there'll be mushrooms. This is the reason why I generally dislike hunting in strange forests since in them you don't have this option.

Loved the bit about Nabokov's mother, who'd bring home lots of mushrooms and then totally lose interest in them, letting her kitchen staff to do the processing. I do my own processing and I love cooking the mushrooms I gather (as is witnessed by this blog), but if I did have "kitchen staff", who knows... The temptation of leaving dirty work to someone else is strong in this one.

The only thing that the author got wrong in the article, is that her linguistic coinage (which I dare not reproduce here, but for the curious, the complete text is here) is not really family friendly. The article author's HRH aka "Handsome Russian Husband" must have failed to explain that nuance of meaning. But well, it's men for you. Can never trust them.

Squirrels and chanterelles

Local butcher: "Squirrel? Seriously?"

Now, this is not a proper recipe because I failed (through no lack of trying though!) to get the main ingredient.

You can view and admire at the weirdness and complexity of the original recipe here. It is taken from a "hairy biker recipe book", and it makes me wonder...

Anyway, I did try to get some squirrel. Actually went to a butcher whose sign said, more or less, "we'll get you anything as long as it has legs". So I ask, do you have squirrel?

Mushroom mix: almost ready
(note the bright orange of the milk
caps - they always keep their colour)

You should just have seen the look they gave me. In the end, we settled on a wood pigeon since hey, it lives in the same woods, eats the same food, and climbs the same trees. Therefore, it must taste exactly the same, right? Right??

The pigeon, as it turned out, was composed mainly of bones, but it did make an unexpectedly nice sauce. And, of course, the mushrooms! The original recipe suggested chanterelles, but I used a mix of bay boletes, slippery jacks, chanterelles and saffron milk caps, fried until they were crispy. I must say, it indeed makes an excellent topping for any meat dish. I'm definitely going to cook something similar again, but maybe use something with more meat on it next time. Perhaps, venison meatballs. That would at least meet with butcher's approval...

Beautiful ceps

This weekend's trip was the most enjoyable I've had so far this season. Just look at the very first find, which I nearly missed in thick grass -

The perfect cep!

It wasn't large, the whole mushroom fit comfortably within my palm, but - oh, the shape! The colour! Say no more!

After this encounter I turned to a less well trodden path, the one which I take only two or three times in a season. It's not my favourite because of the wildlife: navigating that way means that most of the time you have to walk through very tall grass, which serves as a hiding place deer who snooze in it during the day (thankfully, yesterday there was just one). They wouldn't budge until you almost step on them! Even though I'm ready for this, it still gives me the willies.

Anyway, the deer are only half of the problem. The other half are their parasites. I've never seen so many ticks in my life. It seems that every blade of grass hosts dozens of them. Anyone needs shock cure for arachnophobia? Because, I once took a visitor that way, not realising she had that problem. After the screaming subsided (and let's try not to think of the deer, it was a seriously bad day for them), her fear of bugs and arachnids was gone, forever. I guess, when you have thousands of beasties crawling over you, your worst nightmare therefore comes true, and then you may realise that it wasn't so bad after all. Or at least, that's my explanation of what happened.

Right, where was I? Oh, yes. Mushrooms, of course. That perilous path has one thing for it: it leads to the most amazing chanterelle spot in the forest. On the space of about 100 square feet you get an obscene amount of mushrooms. It also goes without saying that they are all mine, because, see above. No one else is crazy enough to even attempt to reach it.

One square foot out of the hundred

After the deer and tick trials, I felt like I deserved an easier path to finish off the hunt, and thus took to a line of old elms that cuts right across the forest. I was really looking for amethyst deceivers, but it was not to be. However, there was another marvellous cep find:

Cep, under elm? Hmmm...

And also several young and juicy bay boletes -

Not as perfectly beautiful, but just as tasty

And, at the exit, yet another prize -

Unorthodox shape, but nice and firm - good for the basket

At the final stretch, I got deceived into thinking that these were saffron milk caps -

Arrgh! Wrong mushroom :-(

Took them anyway to test the theory that Lactarius torminosus are good pickled. The disappointment didn't last long though, as the mixed wood yielded some true saffron milk caps, too, and then it was time to go home!

Yield of the day: left - bay boletes; top - the three ceps; top right - brown birch bolete; right - saffron milk caps;
 bottom - slippery jacks; centre - lots of chanterelles. A most productive trip!

The perfect way to cook mushrooms

This short video gives no-nonsense guidance as to how cook perfect sautéed mushrooms. With white wine! The use of tarragon took me by surprise as I previously thought that it only combines with fish, but I'm definitely going to try it out.

Which reminds me - it's Friday, and nearly time for dinner!

Take care everyone, do not eat any strange mushrooms, and I'll see you next week for more stories and hunting reports!

Magic mushrooms in hospital

A better kind of magic mushroom

I try to avoid, as much as I can, writing about hallucinogenic mushrooms. Partly because I disapprove of taking drugs in general: it is difficult enough to understand this complicated world even without confusing your brain with foreign substances. But also because fungal drug abuse is a cliche similar to lethal mushroom poisoning.

This blog aims to promote fungi as a valuable natural resource with great constructive potential, and the fact that some representatives of this kingdom can be toxic or hallucinogenic does not support the concept. So I try to pretend that these topics do not exist. Ignore them, and maybe they'll go away.

However, in cases when humour value of a news story is such as this one, I just have to write about it.

In a nutshell: a mental patient was kicked out of a hospital for consuming magic mushrooms that he found growing in the smoking area. Given the £5m cost of the facility, you have to wonder how it happened that the patch wasn't concreted over. I've heard that funny mushrooms can be used for treating certain mental conditions, but somehow I doubt that the medical facility in question is that advanced...

Image credit:
Magic mushrooms

Orange!

Got to love them

Saffron milk caps are one of my long-time favourites. Their Latin name is most appropriate: Lactarius deliciosus. Some mushroom hunters believe that there is no finer mushroom on this planet, and I tend to agree. The combination of strong taste, firm texture and vivid orange colour of both raw and cooked mushrooms is second to none.

Ceps, the universally recognised mushroom royalty, have just one advantage over saffron milk caps: the former are equally good fresh, frozen and dried, and keep in the fridge for at least a week, whereas the latter start turning into greenish goo after just a few hours. The only possibility of preservation is to pickle them. There are some fans of this method, but to me the result looks (and tastes!) like brown slugs.

A word of warning: there is one lookalike poisonous species in temperate forests. Its distinction from the true saffron milk cap is that it grows under birch and has white milky sap (the original's is bright orange) and wooly edge under its cap.

Russian field guides maintain that wooly milk cap is edible if pickled, but even they admit that if one makes its way into a frying pan, the result would be a massive culinary disaster.

The two mushroom species do look very similar though, and this must be the reason why all saffron milk caps in Scottish forests are mine. As long as I get to them before the maggots...

Image credit:
Lactarius deliciosus

Mushroom medley

These will make a great risotto...
in three month's time!

This post is not so much a recipe, but rather cooking thoughts. Once the mushrooms are in your basket, what do you do with them?

For instance, yesterday I brought home a couple of kilograms of fungi. Clearly, cooking them all at once does not make much sense unless you have a big hungry family (I don't).

The answer is, segregate.

Ceps preserve really well, in dried and frozen state, so they were cleaned, wiped with with damp kitchen towel,  cut into chunks and placed into a freezer bag.

Stage 1: note the bright orange
of the saffron milk caps.

And, that's almost half of the weight gone. Next, chanterelles. They have no trouble keeping in the fridge for a week or so. Stick them in a container, and leave for laters.

Thus, we are just left with two kinds of birch boletes, slippery jacks, saffron milk caps and amethyst deceivers. All rather perishable, but the quantity is already manageable. After cutting away the maggot-infested parts, it's only about 500-600g left. Perfect for a classic mushroom medley: fry some onion in olive oil, add mushrooms, splash over a bit of white wine, add salt/pepper, then single cream, reduce the heat, stew for 10-15 minutes.

Profit!

Last day of summer

The hunting trip on Saturday was possibly the most rewarding and at the same time frustrating in the entire season.

Rewarding, because -

Two beautiful (almost) maggot-free specimens

The two ceps were right at the forest entrance, and together weighed about a kilogram. Now, after such a find any mushroom hunt is automatically declared a definite success. However, a hunt is not a hunt if it only lasts a few minutes, so the two beauties went in to the basket and the hunter pressed on.

After THREE HOURS of checking a hundred possible mushroom spots along a roughly 6 mile stretch of forest path, there was finally another find. Two amethyst deceivers. If you know what they are, you'll be laughing your sides off. Because, they are very nice edible mushrooms, no doubt about that, but it takes several hundred of them to fill a very small pot. Coincidentally, that's the numbers in which they normally grow, but I found TWO. Right, going on...

Using the convenient shortcut I found last time, which was then full with bay boletes, I only managed to spot these. And I can tell you, when I bother to take out my camera to snap non-edible mushrooms, things are not going well.

They looked so promising from a hundred feet away... disappoint

Sulphur tufts! Rather pretty and abundant, but bitter, inedible and even toxic according to some reference guides. The hunt was quite clearly over. Tired and frustrated, I planned the shortest route to the bus stop. However, two minutes later I stumbled on a faint path, at the entrance of which there were these:

Twins! (Actually, half-brothers)

Unusually, they were growing only a couple of feet apart, under the same birch tree. This hinted that the path beyond could hold more pleasant surprises, so on I went, even though it was only just going in the right direction.

After two more minutes, another most welcome find. A saffron milk cap! I almost gave up on them this season, but they were not gone, just a couple of weeks late.

Saffron milk cap. Long overdue for species highlight!

After that, many more saffron milk caps and brown birch boletes, as well as a few slippery jacks, and, for the finishing touch, a great chanterelle spot.

Chanterelle surprise!

In the end, the basket was almost full, so initial frustration was more than compensated by the last hour or so. The complete spoils are below. And what did I do with this haul? Come back tomorrow to find out!

Left: brown birch boletes (there really were a lot); top left: one bay bolete, badly eaten by slugs but still edible, next to it - an orange birch bolete; top: three ceps; top right: saffron milk caps, mostly maggot-ridden but still got enough flesh from them to be worthwhile; bottom right: slippery jacks; centre: chanterelles;
bottom left: a couple of wooly milk caps and cracked boletes, just for spore prints;
the two purple "worms" at right centre bottom are the two amethyst deceivers.