Some internet trolls

Do trolls like mushrooms? Anyway - breakfast is served!

Milky tea and chanterelle mushroom pie

After this, I had a most productive day in the forest - here is the teaser. Detailed report to follow!

Mostly frogs

I started off to the forest last Saturday hoping to get some first ceps, thinking that even though there hasn't been much rain lately, it should still be wet enough deep in the forest for some fungal goodness to emerge.

Just on the edge, I found this fungus -

Grey-spotted amanita

These fungi are apparently edible, but rules are rules: no amanitas in my basket! Ever. Its mere presence however was a most encouraging sign, meaning that my hopes for ceps were not unfounded.

But for the next hour or so, all I saw was this little critter, and hundreds and possibly thousands of its brothers and sisters, all hadly bigger than my little fingernail, hopping across paths and clearings to their promised ponds, or whatever counts as amphibian paradise:

So adorable!

So only much later, when I went right into the very heart of the forest, did I set my eyes on this magnificent sight -

What can I say - magnificent.

Not much to tell afterwards. There was a giant chanterelle -

Didn't know they could grow this huge

And then I got lost. Yes, that's right. In my home forest, which I know like the back of my palm. It was all because of logging. It's claimed to be "good forest management", but I really fail to see how it can be useful. Forests have been around for much longer than humans, and they somehow managed to manage themselves. Anyway, I mixed up paths because they no longer looked the same as they were last year, and took a wrong turn. After 15 minutes, I had my first doubts. This marshy patch looks familiar... Then even more doubts. This rabbit net looks just like the one I passed two hours ago... And then, finally - Those three rotten mushrooms on a log - oh dear, I'm about two miles away from the spot I thought I would be.

And that was it. The haul wasn't great, but the season hasn't really started yet, so I shouldn't complain. It has been raining more this week, so from here things can only get better!

Three ceps, one bay bolete, chanterelles, and wild raspberries and strawberries.

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?

Second chanterelle hunt

It has been fairly dry recently, so I didn't have high hopes for my foraging trip last weekend. But despite the lack of moisture, chanterelles were still growing, surprisingly more on sandy soil of the Tayport heath than deeper in the forest.

Deviating slightly from the path I took the previous week, I also found a semi-decayed lurid bolete, and a couple of overripe bay boletes. A forager's nightmare, this is. If only I took five steps to the left/right/off the path/took another turn (underline as required). Ah, well, you win some, you lose some.

And here are the trip results - all destined to go into a cream sauce a couple of days later:

About 500g here - already slightly dried out, but still good

Spring archive - part I

Spring in Scotland is not a great time for mushrooms. Fungi don't like appearing when it's below 15C it seems, no matter how much it rains. Rain, we have a lot. Warmth, not so much.

Nevertheless, around beginning of May you get some brave fungi that ignore this rule and stick their heads above ground. Such as these, peeking from under leaf blanket:

Tricholoma sp.

A few days later, I came across a much bigger group, growing in a rocky garden. Fairy inkcaps are always a joy to see. They are even edible, although due to their small size collecting any quantity would take hours.

If only they were slightly bigger...

Need some kind of automated micro-harvester!