Richard Dawkins on the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms

The video below is of Richard Dawkins responding to Graham Hancock's question about whether he'd consider taking hallucinogenic drugs. If you cannot bear the low video quality, here's the transcript of his key point:

"I think it very unlikely that whatever happened to me would be interpreted as indicating anything supernatural. I would, on the contrary, interpret it as a manifestation of what a wonderful thing a brain is, and how the brain can see and experience even more things under the right kinds of chemical stimulation."

I fully agree with the first part of his statement: there is nothing supernatural in the effects of drugs, it is just brain chemistry trying to fix itself following the injection of foreign substances. Drugs, however, do not make you see "more things" - it is just the same things, only skewed and unrecognisable. For this reason, I'd stay away from any mind-altering chemicals. It is difficult enough to make sense of the world with an uninebriated brain.

Concerning baskets

Basket - ready to take another season

Despite the doubts concerning the weather (still no rain in the foreseeable future), I took out my mushroom basket from its cupboard for inspection. My father brought it to me from Ukraine 3 years ago, and amazingly it looks like it'll be good for yet another season.

Outside of mushroom season I use it for storing vegetables and bird feed, so it has seen some regular use over the years. Not one twig out of place! That's what I call good quality.

It is made in authentic medieval style, 100% willow, no plastic anywhere. Not that it makes any difference to the mushrooms, as all kinds of baskets provide the same sort of support and breathing for the collected fungi, and they can all spread spores equally well since, obviously, they all have small holes. However, willow is much easier on the hands than plastic, and it makes a big difference if you have to carry home a big crop.

All right, all right, I won't bore you any more with this. To summarise: I have my basket ready for the mushroom season. Yay!

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!

Chanterelle and egg pie

Selection of ingredients

This is the second recipe I cooked last week, after the courgette salad. Still not sure what to do with the current bounty of wild mushrooms in my fridge. If only they would keep! The forecast now says no rain for 2 weeks at least, so it is quite possible that mushroom season will be suspended. I guess I'll have to hunt for wild strawberries instead: in all this heat they will get ripe in no time. Today we had 26 degrees, which is I think the all-time record.

But let me not be distracted from the recipe. Here it is.

Ingredients:

Just before the return to the oven

• 1 ready-rolled sheet of shortcrust pastry
  (or you can make it yourself, but I am lazy)
• 500g chanterelles
  
• 1 large onion
• 6 eggs
• 100g double cream
• 100g white wine
• grated parmesan
• herbs, salt, pepper

Ready to eat!

Process:

Grease two 20cm baking pans with butter and dust with flour. Line each with half of the pastry sheet, making a case for the future pie. Fill each pan with baking beans and bake in an oven preheated to 180C (if it is a fan oven, or 200 if not), for about 15 minutes. Remove the baking beans and bake the cases for a further 5 minutes until golden.

Meanwhile, clean, wash and tear the chanterelles and chop the onion. Fry them together in a large frying pan with a little olive oil. Once the onion gets soft add herbs, salt, pepper and white wine. Cook on high heat until the liquid evaporates. Remove the herbs. Distribute the mixture between the two pie cases. Beat the eggs together with cream and pour them over the mushrooms. I don't salt the eggs but add their share to the mushrooms/onions instead, but this is up to the cook. Now, for the final touch - cover the eggy surface of each pie with a generous helping of grated parmesan and put the pies back into the oven. The temperature needs to be lower now, about 170C. They will be ready in 15 minutes.

Lots of chanterelles

Possibly the ugliest cep photo
on the web

It has hardly been raining at all last week, but that doesn't stop a true mushroom hunter from trying, right?

As it happened, the trip was so successful that I ran out of plastic containers and had to put some of the pickings into a carrier bag. Very bad form, I know. Next week, I'll definitely bring a basket.

Lots of chanterelles

I took a couple of helpers with me this time. Usually, I prefer to go alone as very few people can take the required legwork without complaining, but this time I was glad to have two extra pairs of hands to order around. The final haul was 1.5kg, and it may not seem like a lot, but it is many hundreds of individual chanterelles. If you are alone on the job, it can take you hours to cut them. I am really looking forward to ceps because of this - they are so much less work. I did get one yesterday, it was small, desiccated and heavily sampled by slugs, but it's still a promise of the things to come. Provided, of course, that the current dry spell ends soon. Scotland is at this moment enduring the worst heatwave of the century: temperatures in mid-twenties and no rain for the past five days.

The forecast promises some reprieve on Wednesday, with the more normal +17C and rain. About time!