Spring archive - Part II

It has been very warm and dry recently, so much in fact that I had to start watering my garden plants. Not very typical Scottish weather!

There seemed to be little point to venture to the forest in these conditions, so I was sorting through some pictures, and found a couple in my mailbox, sent from Moscow region, which are worth sharing. Meet Gyromitra esculenta, the false morel:

In its natural habitat...

And in the basket, ready for processing

These mushrooms were subsequently parboiled and eaten. Now, if you look up reference on these, there would be warnings that these can be fatal when eaten raw, and even when properly cooked, may cause liver and kidney failure through the effects of cumulative poison.

They also, apparently, tasted more or less like slices of rubber.

Hmm, I'm not at all conservative with my food, but if I ever choose to risk serious poisoning, it would be for something that at least tastes good... Fugu fish, anyone?

Logs have ears!

This was one of unexpected winter discoveries that I made in small wooded area that I cross every day on my way to work. One day in late February a dead log sprouted brown-pinkish growths: Judah's Ears!

Temptation to forage them for food was powerful, but knowing how well-loved that particular log is by passing dogs, I managed to abstain. Also, I already have a pack of these wonderful fungi, in compact dried form, in my cupboard. So, just a photo -

Stunning!

Brown roll rim

Paxillus involutus

Many people are scared of poisonous fungi such as death caps, or destroying angels, or deadly web caps, which kill you quickly, painfully, and reliably. Fungal poisoning though can be more subtle than that. Meet the brown roll rim, the fungus that could kill you after you'd eaten it one hundred times with no ill effects. That one last time, it causes an autoimmune reaction in its victims that destroys red blood cells, ultimately causing kidney failure. It is not a cumulative poison, as some sources suggest. The exact reasons why some, but not all, instances of brown roll rim consumption result in serious illness, are not known.

Because deaths by brown roll rims are so rare, the toxicity of this mushroom has not been recognised until recently. Indeed, in parts of Central and Eastern Europe it is still consumed, sometimes in great quantities, as evidenced by the photo below.

Looks great, but these are not for me

I have to admit that this species highlights a serious issue with wild food generally: in truth, you never can have a total guarantee that the stuff you bring in from the forest is safe. There are no biological, chemical or radiological controls to reassure you, unlike in big supermarkets (although, the recent horsemeat burger scandal shows that even their procedures are not 100% reliable).

Fortunately, with properly identified edible mushrooms the risk is minimal. But brown roll rims? No matter how inviting that pot of cooked mushrooms looks, I'm giving it a miss.

Image credits:
Paxillus involutus
Cooked brown roll rim (personal communication)

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 

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

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

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!

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

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

The king of mushrooms

My first cep

Today's highlight, as clearly follows from the title, is about Boletus edulis, or penny bun, or cep, or porcino. It is the holy grail of all mushroom gatherers. It is prominently featured on the covers of almost all edible mushroom guides. Even its scientific name - "edulis" leaves us in no doubt as to how great it is.

In fact, I never saw one in the wild before coming to Scotland. For some reason, they didn't grow in my native parts. So picking my first one back in 2006 was a very special thing. It marked the beginning of my love affair with Scottish forests and my bad mushroom photography. That's right. Ceps made me do it, blame them for everything.

This is the basket of a very happy
mushroom hunter

When I brought my first cep home to cook though, it was somewhat disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it was a very good specimen, dry and firm. A bit maggot-infested, but any good mushroom guide book will tell you that you can and should eat ceps with maggots and all - they are just as wholesome as the mushroom itself. No, my disappointment came from all the exposure to the cep hype. I expected it to taste like white truffles, no less. But the truth is, it doesn't really taste of anything. Saffron milk caps, by contrast, have a much more distinctive taste and also keep their orange colour in the stew, which is why many people rate them above boletes, even though few guidebooks agree.

I do love ceps for one thing: their enormous size. Finding just one or two good big ones is enough to make a meal. A mature specimen can weigh over a kilogram! Also, compared to most other fungi, they are very easy to prepare for cooking - unlike chanterelles, for instance, which can drive you nuts because they are so tiny and each needs to be cleaned. Another advantage is that they have no poisonous lookalikes and can be eaten raw. There is the bitter bolete of course, Tylopilus felleus, but it's not poisonous, just very very unpalatable. I usually taste each mushroom before cooking to make sure that only good ones go into the pot.

The earliest ceps in Scotland appear in July, around this time. So, how is that weather forecast? Hmm, still no rain in sight... Just nice, sunny weather and temperatures in mid-twenties. No good for mushrooms. Hey, I want my proper Scottish summer back!

Russulas - beautiful and deceitful

A typical russula

My relationship with genus Russula has never been an easy one. There are some things that are so great about them: they are among the first mushrooms to appear in the forest and among the last to finish fruiting, they are abundant, they are colourful and good-looking. Some of these fungi are quite delicious, too, and this is where I have an issue with them.

Same mushroom from below

It is actually very easy to identify a mushroom as some kind of russula: the form of the cap, stem and gills are all very distinctive. However, distinguishing between the 750 or so species within the genus is a nightmare. After carefully considering form, colour, ecology and spore print, you are typically left with 3 or 4 possibilities, one of which would be edible, one toxic, and the rest inedible or not worthwhile. Arrgh!! I don't want to take any chances!

One could argue that identification in the case of russulas is less critical than for amanitas. Indeed, no one has ever died of consuming a russula, but there are still many among them that are bitter or have unpleasant taste, or worse. Take Russula emetica for instance: eat one of those, and over the next few hours you will be stuck in the loo, with both ends of your digestive tract adversely affected. Not fatal, but extremely unpleasant! The fact that russulas appear so early in the year makes this dilemma even more excruciating. It is easy to give a miss to mushrooms with uncertain ID when your basket is already getting full, but it's a different story when all you manage to collect is a couple of handfuls.

Take the fungus in the photos above, for instance. Is it Russula decolorans? fragilis? or an unusually coloured olivacea? There is no way to know for sure, so with much regret, I put this beautiful specimen back where I found it, and go back home with just the chanterelles. Because I could never mistake them for anything else.

Slippery characters

Slippery jack

Today's highlight is dedicated to slippery jack, Suillus luteus and its cousins. I have a special place for these fungi in my heart as it was with them that I was introduced to the wonderful world of wild food foraging.

A great thing about slippery jacks is that it has no poisonous lookalikes. If the mushroom you see has a slimy cap and yellow spore tubes, it belongs in the basket. There is only one very similar fungus in Scottish forests, Suillus granulatus, or weeping bolete, and it is just as good to eat. When sorting through my pickings, I always separate these two varieties, but it is just being obsessive. There is no difference in preparation, cooking methods or taste, so this is quite unnecessary.

Weeping bolete

One important thing to remember is to peel the slimy cap and remove the veil before cooking. I did it initially for aesthetic reasons, to preserve the light colour of mushroom flesh in cooking, until I found out that its skin is a rather potent purgative. Thus, removing it is obligatory, unless you wish to troll your unwanted guests. In this case, slippery jacks can provide a more humane option than ink caps.

Many mushroom guides say that it's best to remove the skin in the field, but my experience suggests that this is not good advice. The naked porous surface of these mushrooms easily gets bruised and collects all grime and sand in the basket. You can only get rid of it afterwards by washing, but applying water to these guys is a bad idea as they will soak it all up much like kitchen towels. Also, some people get skin irritation from prolonged contact with the slime, and it is so much easier to protect yourself from it at home.

Just being thorough. They do look
a bit different when put side by side

These mushrooms typically get "meh" reviews in fungi collecting field guides regarding their edibility. Wikipedia, too, doesn't have much good to say about its taste, but notes that it is considered a delicacy in Russia. Weird Russians, right?.. Well, I can accept that slippery jack may not be everyone's favourite morsel on the plate. Like most mushrooms, it lacks strong taste, but it makes up for it with its unique texture. It is very similar to raw oysters, so if you like them, it's definitely worth a try. If you hate them, don't bother. It means that there'd be more left for me!

Image credits:
Slippery jack, Suillus luteus
Weeping bolete, Suillus granulatus

The case of fly agaric

Belle of the woods

It's Wednesday, and therefore time for a new species highlight. Originally, I was planning to alternate the feature between edible and inedible/toxic mushrooms. Last week it was chanterelles, so I thought, I need something equally well-known to introduce the poisonous varieties. And what fungus can do better than the iconic fly agaric, Amanita muscaria?

And then, I got on the web to check my facts, and got confused. Whereas all mushroom identification guides I've come across unanimously list this fungus as both poisonous and hallucinogenic, a quick web search threw up several links where people were consuming fly agarics as food.

The trick, apparently, lies in boiling them for at least 15 minutes in lots of water. This removes both the toxin (muscarine) and the hallucinogens (ibotenic acid and muscimol). Afterwards, the mushroom can be fried in butter and has an "unusual nutty taste" which "makes you wish for more".

Interesting taste is not the only argument of the proponents for its food consumption. They point out that the fly agaric is available in large quantities, that there are lots of other foods we eat that are toxic raw (red kidney beans for instance) and that it is almost impossible to misidentify. All true! But then, given the large variation in toxicity, boiling may not be sufficient to detoxify some strains; in addition, they need to be kept separately from other mushrooms to avoid contamination with the spores, which are also toxic; and finally, collecting these fungi can be illegal. You fancy explaining to your local policeman that the 3 kilos of red-capped mushrooms in your basket are for family dinner? Me neither.

Giant fly agarics in Minecraft

So, all things considered, I'd give fly agarics a wide berth, and only collect them as photos. And in Minecraft. Red mushrooms with white dots are safe to eat there and are farmed for both food and building material. Could it be where Ecovative got their ideas from?..

Links to some of the articles:

Eating Santa's Shroom

Fat of the Land's blog

On the subject of fly agarics (this one is about what can happen if you do not cook them properly)

Image credit: 

Fly agaric engraving by William Miller

Concerning chanterelles

While I have yet to see this year's first chanterelles, I thought I should present them properly, since in the coming months I am planning to devote quite a few posts to their collection and cooking.

Golden chanterelles, C. cibarius

Golden chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) is one of the easiest fungi to identify: its yolky colour and absence of true gills clearly distinguish it from similar species such as false chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca) and jack-o-lantern (Omphalotus olearius). Even if a mistake is made, false chanterelle is not poisonous but merely inedible, and jack-o-lantern's effects are not fatal, although extremely unpleasant. Also, the latter is very rare in the UK and as far as I am aware non-existent in Scotland. There was a news report a few years ago that someone died from eating deadly webcaps, Cortinarius rubellus, thinking that they were chanterelles, but come on, it is like mixing up white button mushrooms with shiitakes. If your attention to detail is that bad, foraging for wild mushrooms should not be on your list of possible weekend activities in the first place.

Deadly webcaps - not at all alike

Chanterelles are to be found in Scottish forests from May to October, they usually grow in large groups, so just one good spot is enough to fill a basket. I find that it is best not to clean them if they are not to be used immediately, but just shake off the slugs and put the mushrooms into the fridge in plastic containers, to be washed and cleaned right before cooking. If picked on a dry day, they will keep for a week or more. Unfortunately, this species does not lend itself well to preservation, as drying them ruins the texture, and freezing makes larger specimens bitter. It's best to cook them fresh.

As for their culinary use, chanterelles do great in sauces, stews and even salads. However, in my opinion, their unique flavour is at its best when they are combined with beaten eggs. Even a handful of them in an omelette makes for an extraordinary dish, and if you have enough for a quiche, this will take you straight to heaven. Metaphorically. Chanterelles are safe to eat even raw.

Despite many attempts at cultivation, chanterelles have so far evaded domestication. In 1997 an article in Nature, "Successful cultivation of the golden chanterelle" described a process by which fruitbodies were obtained from under 16-month old pine seedlings, suddenly giving hope to all chanterelle fans. Sadly, it was just a lucky fluke because the authors in the end failed to create conditions for consistent appearance of fruitbodies, and all chanterelles that are sold in grocery shops and supermarkets these days are collected in the wild.

Image credits:
Cantharellus cibarius
Cortinarius rubellus

The fastest thing on the planet!

Another amazing video from BBC Nature. Apparently, a tiny fungus that lives on horse poo is the fastest thing on Earth. The spore pod is ejected from the fungus body at 20,000 g. Wow! I hope you enjoy the clip as much as I did, and see you next week!

Is it edible, or poisonous?

And the moral of this story...

I once heard a story about a man in Russian village who was an avid mushroom gatherer. In the warm time of year he would go to nearby woodland, or to the fields, and bring back a good crop, the greater part of which would be dried, pickled or frozen by his wife to be enjoyed during long Russian winters, and some of it she would make into family dinner. One day they got a neighbour, who came to settle in their village from a city. The delicious smells of mushrooms cooked in sour cream reached his nostrils, he knocked on their door, and they grudgingly invited him to share their meal.

The culprit

The next morning the man and his wife were working in their garden when their new neighbour staggered out of his house, all green-faced, and claimed that they had fed him poisonous mushrooms. The man pointed out that it was nonsense because they were all eating from the same pot, and both he and his wife were well. With gardening done, he got his basket and went on another foraging trip, and came back in the evening with more mushrooms. By that time the neighbour recovered enough for the delicious smell of mushrooms to lure him again to the man's house, and the meal was shared again.

In the morning... you guessed it. It is unknown how many attempts it took for the neighbour to get the message, but apparently in the end he thought that village life did not suit him at all, and he went back to the city.

If you read this post, you probably realised by now that the mushroom stew contained common ink caps, Coprinopsis atramentaria, and also that the good man and his wife were teetotallers, while their neighbour was a drinker. A common ink cap is edible and tasty on its own, but consume any alcohol with it, and you'll be off mushrooms, and food generally, for a while.

To summarise: someone you know likes to turn up to dinner uninvited? Now you know how to deal with the problem.

Image credits:
Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda poster from 1980s, public domain
Faltentintlinge (Coprinopsis atramentaria). Illustration by Albin Schmalfuß, 1897, public domain