Blue oyster mushrooms - time lapse

Today's video is short and sweet, and shows a time lapse sequence of cultivated blue oyster mushrooms. I particularly like how they start looking similar to cobras once reaching maturity.

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

Fungi on London Underground

Occasionally I wonder if I am the only one who is so crazy about mushrooms. Then I come across an article like this one, and it becomes very clear that I am not alone in the universe.

In short, it tells about a few mycologists who went on fungal foray in London underground, in order to find out which of the lines is the mouldiest. The winner by a small margin was, unexpectedly, the newest, Jubilee line, where unfortunate commuters breathe in 1 fungal spore a minute, and unlike other lines these spores are not from penicillin, and why that has to be so, remains an unsolved mystery.

So, what made those people to look for fungi in the underground? Perhaps, Nils Norman's vision of Piccadilly line in 2050? After all, in its bottom left corner it prominently features Hammersmith Mushroom Facility. Not too far from Green Park, where it intersects with Jubilee line. Hmmm, I wonder what those unknown spores actually are...

Trees and stumps

What is it?

Our spell of (proper) summer continues, and the ground is already getting parched. So much in fact that even the strawberries are getting unhappy. A couple of my minions (other people usually call them "family members") went to the forest yesterday and brought back 1.1kg of berries, and that's probably the last of them this summer.

The only place where there's anything of interest is the trees and stumps, and I came across a rather fine fungal specimen today. As you can see from the photograph, it is quite big, the cap about 15cm across, and its thin stem at least as tall, growing from a dead tree stump. It looks a bit like some kind of entoloma, but the stipe is too thin and their caps, as far as I know, are never convex. A mystery! If it's still there this evening I'll take it home to make a spore print, and then perhaps I'll be able to identify at least its genus.

UPD: The spore print turned out to be white, so I have to conclude that it is some kind of toughshank.

Lots of chanterelles in sour cream

Despite my complaints about the weather, I brought home so many mushrooms last week that the chanterelle and mushroom pie only consumed a third of them. Chanterelles keep quite well in the fridge, but still there comes a time when a desperate forager has to either find a way to utilise them all or let them perish. Hold on a second, let them perish? Never!

So I got looking on the web for suggestions as to how to cook a large amount of chanterelles. They don't freeze or dry well, as I think I've mentioned before. It didn't take me long to discover this great traditional Russian method. I hesitate to call it a "recipe" as it only has 5 ingredients, but I've always believed that best cooking is simple cooking, so here it is.

Ingredients:

• 1kg of chanterelles
• 1-2 onions
• 200g sour cream
• some olive oil
• salt

Process:

Slice the onions into thin rings. Pour olive oil into a deep frying pan and gently fry the onions until soft. Add the cleaned and washed chanterelles, small ones left whole, large ones halved or quartered. Keep frying, stirring frequently, until all water evaporates. Salt to taste. Transfer the chanterelles to a heavy pot, add sour cream, stir well, bring to boil. Reduce the heat to the minimum and cook under lid for 20 minutes.

The result can be served with rice as a dish in its own right or as garnish to meatballs or steak. This is how they dealt with bumper crop of chanterelles in ancient Russia. I suspect that for the final stage they used a proper wood-fired Russian oven, but even on a conventional gas top the result is great. Enjoy! 

Foraging during a heatwave

Could it be the last?..

Who could have suspected that British summer actually exists? Well, there's this area of high pressure that's currently sitting pretty of the British Isles, and the Met Office is issuing heat wave weather warnings left and right.

No, I'm not complaining by the way. It's nice to be able to go out in the street wearing just one layer of clothing. I still keep my waterproof jacket in my bag, even though with no rain forecast for the next fortnight this is probably unnecessary. Just shows that the wounds inflicted on me by Scottish weather are too deep. They will probably never heal.

Consolation prize

Anyway, to the foraging report! This Saturday the forest was already dry like a cinder, but there were still a few mushrooms to be had under low-hanging branches and in the moss. Much smaller pickings than last time, and probably next week there will be none.

But fortunately something else was growing in the forest, almost as good as mushrooms. Wild strawberries got ripe and ready in all this heat. There are great masses of them on sandy dunes, and I collected at least half a kilogram in an hour. It's even harder work than small mushrooms, but the reward was worth it - see below!

Perfect Saturday night dessert: wild strawberries and single cream with a bit of sugar mixed in.