Winter hunt

Winter is upon us, and I don't care what the calendar says because the temperatures in this part of the world have dropped below freezing already.

Naturally, mushrooms are not keen on the weather, and apart from an occasional bunch of ink caps, there is nothing to be seen among all the frost.

These days my hunts have to happen in mushroom isles of supermarkets. And I can tell you, the latest hasn't been bad at all! Behold - grey chanterelles:

Craterellus tubaeformis, all cleaned and ready to be cooked. Origin: South France, according to the label.
I have a feeling I'm missing out here in the frozen North...

Curiously, despite their name these fungi are only distantly related to the golden chanterelle, and in fact recent molecular phylogenetics studies have placed them in a different genus, Craterellus. Still, when it comes to putting these fungi into omelettes, they are just as good as their better-known cousin.

Sunday brunch: served!

Some parasitic fungi

It's a fungus! Rhytisma acerinum

Autumn is almost at the end, with temperatures regularly dropping blow zero at night, but some fungal life is still in evidence. There are some "real" mushrooms on the ground, with stipe, cap, gills and everything, but the true abundance these days is found on tree leaves. It wasn't so obvious during the summer months, but it looks like all maples in the area are heavily infected with sycamore tarspot. Fortunately, it is quite harmless to the trees' long-term health, even though it looks horrible.

But at least, these fungi are feeding on plants, which is not so bad compared to the next photo:

The original of this image can be found here. It's a fungus eat fungus world out there!

Taste of the future: mushroom burgers

Portobello burger served in Honolulu

I was pointed today to a news article that praises burgers made with a mixture of beef and mushrooms. Apparently, you can mix up to 50% of mushrooms into beef mince without sacrificing the flavour.

Wow. The wonders of twenty-first century life. And mushrooms, of course.

I totally approve of this development. Meat is an important part of our diet, and eating it allowed our distant ancestors to grow larger brains, become more intelligent, and ultimately build wonderful things like computers and mushroom farms. Unfortunately, it also makes the twenty-first century man edge ever closer to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Mixing meat with mushrooms seems like a viable half-measure: it seriously reduces the calorie content of the patty, and therefore your waistline is more likely to stay unexpanded.

After all, if it doesn't, you could always go for hardcore:

16 kcal per 100 grams. No half-measures here!

Image credit:
Grilled portobello mushrooms burger

Mushrooms and kilts

Scottish foraging
(artist's impression!)

Glasgow these days is getting ready for Commonwealth Games that are due to open on 23rd July next year, and part of the preparations is to make city's numerous blank building walls look better by painting murals on them. These have been springing up left and right recently, mostly featuring some kind of athletic activity. The one in Merchant city, however, features local wildlife: red deer, highland cattle, badgers, a manic squirrel being hunted by a fox, and a man in a kilt hunting mushrooms.

It is good to see that fungi are being featured with prominence they deserve. The picker is even holding an edible mushroom (bay boletus in fact), so the artists must have done some basic research. Just don't take it as recommendation for action and go to a forest dressed like this: a kilt would do nothing to protect you against ticks!